Construction of Smart Materials for Biomedical Application

The emergence of smart materials will play an increasingly important role in improving the development of biomedical technology. Smart materials can be activated by external stimuli (such as pH, enzymes, light, ultrasound, and temperature), and actuate transformation such as dis-assembly and self-organizing, which can be used to create smart systems containing multifunctional parts that can perform sensing, control and actuation. Multi-disciplinary development promotes the in-depth research of materials sciences and further explores the potential of smart materials. Such smart materials have the potential to revolutionize molecular imaging or the therapy of serious diseases.

In this Research Topic, we will fundamentally focus on the novel design and construction of smart materials for biomedical applications. Recently, advances in nanotechnology have underpinned many important components and fabrication tools to achieve precise compositional and spatial control, which provides sophisticated nanomaterials with optimized properties for drug delivery. Toolboxes from synthetic biology, such as optogenetic tools, have been utilized for the bottom-up building of smart materials, which enable the engineering of artificial cells, living biomaterials, living therapeutics and microbe robots. Also, artificial intelligence (AI) has demonstrated its leading ability in the designing and manufacturing of smart materials for various biomedical and life science applications. The goal of this Research Topic is to focus on addressing these issues by highlighting recent advancements in the areas of smart materials for biomedical applications.

In this Research Topic, we welcome original research articles, communications, perspective articles and reviews with a focus on all kinds of smart materials that are either designed by artificial intelligence, or built by protein, polymers, nanoparticles and applied in the biomedical fields. Topics addressed in this Research Topic may include but are not limited to:
• Stimuli-responsive materials for disease diagnostics and therapy.
• Stimuli-responsive materials for molecular imaging.
• Smart materials for tissue engineering and regeneration.
• Stimuli-responsive materials for drug delivery and application in nanomedicine.
• Light-responsive or thermo-responsive materials for cell/stem cell encapsulation and controlled release.
• Light-responsive materials for the synthesis of artificial cells.
• Light-responsive materials developed from optogenetic and synthetic biology.
• Stimuli-responsive materials as biosensors for the detection of chemical substances.
• Light-responsive materials for the photodynamic therapy and photothermal therapy of infection caused by bacteria and biofilm formation.
• AI-driven design of smart materials.