Hydrogel in Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine

Dear Colleagues,

Hydrogels form the foundation of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine as a supportive matrix for cell immobilization and growth factor delivery. Hydrogels, due to their wide range of properties, have been used as injectable, in situ gelling, or patterned matrices; viscous gels; thin sheets; and three-dimensional scaffolds in regenerative medicine to guide and regulate cell fate. It has been widely established that the fate of implanted cells is mediated by cell–matrix and matrix–morphogen interactions at multiple length scales from nano- to macroscale. The fate of multicellular implants depends on the timed release of growth factors to guide the differentiation and maturation of cells toward the desired lineage for each cell type. As a result, there has recently been a great interest in hydrogels with hierarchical structures that mimic the complex interaction of cells with their microenvironment at multiple length scales as well as hydrogels that can locally target growth factors to specific cells at predefined time scales. Related topics for this Topical Collection include hydrogels with a hierarchical structure; self-assembled hydrogels; hybrid and degradable hydrogels; load-bearing and self-healing hydrogels; hydrogels for cell encapsulation and biofabrication; hydrogels for patterning and microfluidic devices and high-throughput screening; injectable and in situ hardening hydrogels for minimally invasive applications; hydrogels that modulate the body’s immune response; and hydrogels for the spatiotemporal delivery of growth factors.

Prof. Dr. Esmaiel Jabbari
Collection Editor

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. 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 collection website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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.