Biodegradable Thermogelling Polymers

Thermogelling materials are envisioned as smart biomaterials with significant potential in the biomedical field. Their importance lies at the intersection between two highly medically relevant classes of materials: hydrogels and smart materials. They possess high water content and tunable properties of hydrogels and the ability to respond to external temperature variations with a simple, physical, and reversible sol-to-gel phase transition. Thermogels are proposed for many uses including drug delivery, gene delivery, and scaffolding for tissue engineering. Recent developments of biodegradable thermogelling polymers are reviewed, focusing on the properties of different thermogel systems and how those properties correlate with biomaterials behavior with the goal of providing safe and effective treatment for the treatment of diseases such as diabetes, glaucoma, and cancer.