Polysaccharide Hydrogels

“This book unveils the secrets of polysaccharide hydrogels that make them invaluable tools in the biomedical field. Written in a scholarly way, the chapters of the book guide newcomers and experts in the field along elegant approaches to prepare the hydrogels, techniques for a very detailed characterization of polysaccharides and their hydrogels, and recent applications. A must in the shelves of any academic or researcher in hydrogels.”

~Prof. Carmen Alvarez-Lorenzo, University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain

“This book is one of the first to relate all the aspects of polysaccharide hydrogels from the basic aspects of chemistry and characterization to their biological relevance and medical applications. The new topic of tissue engineering that associates biological cues, cells, and biomaterials for regenerative medicine needs to mimic extracellular matrices and stimulate cellular survival, proliferation, and differentiation. Biohydrogels made of polysaccharides are one of the best candidates for this task. Polysaccharides similar to glycosaminoglycans can be designed specifically to target applications in relation to their stiffness, mechanical properties, mass transfer properties, and cells and protein interactions. We need to understand the nature of hydrogels at different scales to vision how they may be adapted for different medical applications. This book is a great and comprehensive to answer to these first questions concerning hydrogels. The book constitutes a greatly needed reference for all scientists who focus on polysaccharide hydrogel science.”

~Prof. Pierre Weiss, University of Nantes, France

“‘The gel is easier to recognize than to define’ (Dorothy Jordan Lloyd, 1926). This book gives significant answers to this ‘old’ but still intriguing statement. It gathers together most of the up-to-date information on the hot topic of hydrogels obtained from polysaccharides, their preparation, characterization, and application in the field of pharmaceutics. This book on polysaccharide hydrogels is an interdisciplinary collection of contributions from experts with diverse backgrounds,  thus it provides wide insights suitable for PhD students approaching this subject for the first time as well as for skilled scientists willing to more thoroughly investigate the various aspects related to this type materials.”

~Prof. Gaetano Giammona, University in Palermo and The Biophysics Institute, Italy