Smart Biomaterials in Biomedical Applications: Current Advances and Possible Future Directions.

Smart biomaterials with the capacity to alter their properties in response to an outside stimulus or from within the environment around them have picked up significant attention in the biomedical community. This is primarily due to the interest in applications that may be anticipated from them in a considerable number of dynamic structures and devices. Shape-memory materials are some of these materials that have been exclusively used for biomedical applications. They exhibit unique structural reconfiguration features they adapt as per the provided environmental conditions and can be designed for their enhanced biocompatibility. Numerous research has focused on these smart biocompatible materials over last few decades to enhance their biomedical applications. Shape-memory materials play a significant role in biomedicine to meet new surgical and medical devices' requirements for special features and utility cases. Because of the favorable design variety, different biomedical shape-memory materials can be developed by modifying their chemical and physical behaviors to accommodate the desired requirements. In this review, we describe recent advances and characteristics of smart biomaterials for biomedical applications. We also discuss their clinical translations in tissue engineering, drug delivery, and medical devices. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.