Bacterial cellulose: A smart biomaterial for biomedical applications

The escalating curiosity in bacterial cellulose (BC) due to exceptional attributes such as purity, biodegradability, non-toxicity, porous fibrillar structure, and high water retention potential expand its applications to tissue engineering, controlled drug delivery, and cosmetics. BC has proved highly prospective to be used to manufacture innovative wound care solutions, drug carriers and delivering complexes. The drug-carrying BC found enormous applications in dental therapies, wound care, and scare-free wound management. Various degradation techniques of BC under antibiotic environments and physiological conditions offer different advantages in drug design. The drug loading capacity of BC can be increased by in situ modifications of its fibrillar network. The BC-based scaffolds compounded with other materials such as nanopolymers have explored new frontiers for BC applications in auspicious biomedicinal product developments. BC can accommodate different nanoparticles, biomaterials, synthetic materials, carbon materials, and plant extracts, which allows using BC in various biomedical and cosmetic products.