Editorial: Special Issue on Advanced Biomedical Hydrogels

We hope that this collection of perspectives, reviews, and original research articles on advanced biomedical hydrogels will help to inspire future advances in hydrogels in medicine. Hydrogels are clearly a versatile biomaterial with respect to properties, and the high water content lends itself to be useful in applications of cell culture, diffusive drug release, or through interactions with tissues. The next decades are likely to expand in the identification of new synthetic materials or modified biopolymers for hydrogel formation, the understanding of hydrogel properties and their processing into desired structures, and the improved or new application to specific biomedical problems.