Molecular imprinted polymers: important advances in biochemistry, biomedical and biotechnology

Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) are handmade receptors that mimic the binding of natural antibodies. In other words, MIPs can selectively bind to the target molecule and qualify as bio-inspired synthetic materials. Today, MIPs are used extensively and are being developed further for biological applications. High cost and time consuming techniques are compelling factors for the field of biochemistry, biomedicine and biotechnology (3B), and there is an urgent need for an alternative, cheap, easy to produce, fast and effective method in these fields. MIPs stand out as a promising way for this purpose. MIPs have superiorities such as specific recognition specificity, excellent sensitivity selectivity and reusability. From this point of view, we examined MIP-related drug delivery studies, cell recognition, enzyme applications, in vivo applications, and applications for some important biomolecules. The aim of this review is to compile the utilizations, advantages, important developments and future expectations of MIPs for the fields of 3B.