Prospecting Enzyme-Loaded Gels for Biotechnological Applications

Dear Colleagues,

Government, industry, and end-users are increasingly demanding the products made from materials that are biodegradable, carbon-neutral, environmentally friendly, and have low human health and safety risks. In recent years, there has been a rising trend in using natural and/or synthetic materials to develop gels with tunable attributes. Owing to the unique structural, chemical, physical, physiochemical, and functional features, several types of materials are of supreme interest for biotechnological and nanotechnological applications. Polymeric enzyme-loaded gels, in pristine and/or combined forms, with multi-functional characteristics have been engineered and deployed for multi-purposes. The ease in fine tunability with maintained compliance makes an array of natural and/or synthetic materials outstanding candidates for industrial sector of the modern world. The structural diversity in these polymers has enticed researchers from different areas to explore their potential for many applications, resulting in an exponential growth in materials research.

Enzyme-loaded polymeric gels and their engineered hybrid counterparts have gained an immense essence of excellence in several industrial, biotechnological, and biomedical sectors. Enzyme-loaded polymeric gels also offer remarkable attributes with diverse functional groups, including –OH, –COOH, –NH₂, and –OSO₃ making them excellent candidates for several bio- and non-bio applications, e.g., bio-catalysis, bioremediation, therapeutic molecules, sustained and controlled delivery cues, etc. These enzymes loaded gels have many advantages, such as (i) high enzyme loading, (ii) low mass transfer limitation, (iii) better stabilization, (iv) improved activity, selectivity, specificity, resistivity, and so on. The utilization of properly designed and structured materials thus allows for the creation of a well-defined prototype that supports a series of directed events. For these reasons, we are pleased to launch this new special issue.

This special issue will emphasize the fundamental design concepts and emerging applications of enzyme-loaded polymeric gels that aims to green the 21st-century biotechnological applications. Both types of articles, research, and review are welcome in this issue.

Dr. Muhammad Bilal
Prof. Dr. Hafiz M.N. Iqbal
Dr. Syed Salman Ashraf
Dr. Vijai Kumar Gupta
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Gels is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2100 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Bioconversions
• Bioengineering
• Biomaterials
• Biomedical engineering
• Environmental engineering
• Enzyme bio-catalysis
• Food applications
• Immobilization
• Nanostructured materials
• Point-of-care
• Polysaccharides-based gels
• Skin curative
• Tissue engineering
• Therapeutic applications