Tissue-Engineered (Bioactive) Dressings in Cutaneous Wound Healing: Mechanisms, Materials, and Applications
Summary: This review examines how tissue-engineered dressings combine biomaterials with bioactive agents to accelerate skin healing. It explores the roles of hydrogels, scaffolds, and smart polymers in delivering growth factors, stem cells, nanomaterials, or genetic therapies to support tissue repair.
Key Highlights:
- Materials: Hydrogels, electrospun scaffolds, and composite matrices provide structural and therapeutic benefits.
- Bioactive integration: Growth factors, exosomes, antimicrobial peptides, and stem cells can be embedded to modulate healing phases.
- Mechanisms: Dressings target inflammation resolution, angiogenesis promotion, ECM deposition, and cell migration.
- Clinical challenges: Long-term stability, immune response, and cost remain major barriers to adoption.
- Future direction: Smart dressings responsive to wound cues like pH, ROS, or enzymes are emerging as next-generation options.
Read the full article in Frontiers in Pharmacology
Keywords:
bioactive dressings,
tissue engineering,
hydrogel wound care,
growth factor delivery,
smart wound dressings