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Breast cancer is the most common and biggest health threat for women. There is an urgent need to develop novel breast cancer therapies to overcome the shortcomings of conventional surgery and chemotherapy, which include poor drug efficiency, damage to normal tissues, and increased side effects. Drug delivery systems based on injectable hydrogels have recently gained remarkable attention, as they offer encouraging solutions for localized, targeted, and controlled drug release to the tumor site. Such systems have great potential for improving drug efficiency and reducing the side effects caused by long-term exposure to chemotherapy. The present review aims to provide a critical analysis of the latest developments in the application of drug delivery systems using stimuli-responsive injectable hydrogels for breast cancer treatment. The focus is on discussing how such hydrogel systems enhance treatment efficacy and incorporate multiple breast cancer therapies into one system, in response to multiple stimuli, including temperature, pH, photo-, magnetic field, and glutathione. The present work also features a brief outline of the recent progress in the use of tough hydrogels. As the breast undergoes significant physical stress and movement during sporting and daily activities, it is important for drug delivery hydrogels to have sufficient mechanical toughness to maintain structural integrity for a desired period of time.

The high cost of powerful, large-stroke, high-stress artificial muscles has combined with performance limitations such as low cycle life, hysteresis, and low efficiency to restrict applications. We demonstrated that inexpensive high-strength polymer fibers used for fishing line and sewing thread can be easily transformed by twist insertion to provide fast, scalable, nonhysteretic, long-life tensile and torsional muscles. Extreme twisting produces coiled muscles that can contract by 49%, lift loads over 100 times heavier than can human muscle of the same length and weight, and generate 5.3 kilowatts of mechanical work per kilogram of muscle weight, similar to that produced by a jet engine. Woven textiles that change porosity in response to temperature and actuating window shutters that could help conserve energy were also demonstrated. Large-stroke tensile actuation was theoretically and experimentally shown to result from torsional actuation.

Adverse body reactions to blood-contacting medical devices endanger patient safety and impair device functionality, with events invariably linked to nonspecific protein adsorption due to suboptimal material biocompatibility. To improve the safety and durability of such devices, herein we propose a strategy for introducing stable zwitterionic grafts onto polymeric surfaces via plasma functionalization. The resulting zwitterion-grafted substrates exhibit long-lasting superhydrophilicity, enabling antifouling and anti-thrombogenic properties. We demonstrate the successful modification of the surface elemental composition, morphology, and hydrophilicity, while retaining the underlying mechanical properties of the polymeric substrate. Furthermore, we optimise the fabrication process to ensure long-lasting modifications at least three months after fabrication. This strategy decreases fibrinogen adsorption by approximately 9-fold, and thrombosis by almost 75% when applied to a commercial polyurethane. Moreover, this process is universally applicable to a wide range of polymeric materials, even those with stable chemistry such as polytetrafluoroethylene.Poor material biocompatibility of implanted medical devices endangers patient safety and impairs device functionality. Here, durable zwitterion grafts attached onto polymeric surfaces via plasma functionalization lead to superhydrophilic materials for safer and more durable devices.

Congenital heart diseases (CHDs) frequently impact the right ventricular outflow tract, resulting in a significant incidence of pulmonary valve replacement in the pediatric population. While contemporary pediatric pulmonary valve replacements (PPVRs) allow satisfactory patient survival, their biocompatibility and durability remain suboptimal and repeat operations are commonplace, especially for very young patients. This places enormous physical, financial, and psychological burdens on patients and their parents, highlighting an urgent clinical need for better PPVRs. An important reason for the clinical failure of PPVRs is biofouling, which instigates various adverse biological responses such as thrombosis and infection, promoting research into various antifouling chemistries that may find utility in PPVR materials. Another significant contributor is the inevitability of somatic growth in pediatric patients, causing structural discrepancies between the patient and PPVR, stimulating the development of various growth‐accommodating heart valve prototypes. This review offers an interdisciplinary perspective on these challenges by exploring clinical experiences, physiological understandings, and bioengineering technologies that may contribute to device development. It thus aims to provide an insight into the design requirements of next‐generation PPVRs to advance clinical outcomes and promote patient quality of life.

Glucose plays critical roles in many human body functions, above all as a source of energy. Abnormal levels of glucose are correlated to different diseases, importantly including diabetes. As such, quantification of glucose levels in body fluids is essential for health monitoring. Blood tests and, more recently, portable interstitial fluid tests, currently represent the benchmarks for glucose detection. Inconvenient invasive methods such as blood tests pose burdens on both patients and the healthcare system. In this review, noninvasive approaches to measure glucose levels in the human body are discussed, utilizing saliva as an alternative to conventional blood samples. Techniques explored and with the potential to enhance accuracy and their associated challenges are discussed. This review explains the metabolic pathway of glucose in the human body and identifies various bodily fluids that contain glucose. It then covers the detection mechanisms and performance of salivary glucose sensors, exploring common drawbacks and strategies employed to overcome them. Finally, it provides future perspectives on developing commercially viable devices capable of addressing real‐world problems.

Breath analysis is a non‐invasive tool used in medical diagnosis. However, the current generation of breath analyzers is expensive, time‐consuming, and requires sample gas separation. In this work, a simple, yet effective, low‐cost ammonia gas sensor based on poly(2‐acrylamido‐2‐methyl‐1‐propanesulfonic acid) is presented for non‐invasive medical diagnosis. The designed sensor has a broad detection range to ammonia gas up to 1000 ppm with a limit of detection of 30 ppb. This is a robust sensor, which functions at high relative humidity (RH) (>90%) and exhibits consistent electrical responses under different test conditions. The result of a blind test validates the sensor's selective response to ammonia in the presence of other gases such as carbon dioxide. Furthermore, it is viable to integrate this sensor into a mask for real‐time ammonia gas detection accurately. Overall, this study demonstrates the feasibility of developing a simple, non‐invasive, and cost‐effective sensor for real‐time monitoring of ammonia gas with high potential in applications such as medical diagnostics, food safety, and environmental conditions. A simple low‐cost chemiresistive sensor is designed for rapid and real‐time measurement of ammonia gas with high selectivity and low detection limit within the range of 30 ppb. It is, therefore, superior to current sensors and has a high potential to be used for non‐invasive medical diagnosis.

The principle of control signal amplification is found in all actuation systems, from engineered devices through to the operation of biological muscles. However, current engineering approaches require the use of hard and bulky external switches or valves, incompatible with both the properties of emerging soft artificial muscle technology and those of the bioinspired robotic systems they enable. To address this deficiency a biomimetic molecular-level approach is developed that employs light, with its excellent spatial and temporal control properties, to actuate soft, pH-responsive hydrogel artificial muscles. Although this actuation is triggered by light, it is largely powered by the resulting excitation and runaway chemical reaction of a light-sensitive acid autocatalytic solution in which the actuator is immersed. This process produces actuation strains of up to 45% and a three-fold chemical amplification of the controlling light-trigger, realising a new strategy for the creation of highly functional soft actuating systems.

Achieving robust, cytocompatible bonding of hydrogels to solid substrates remains a long‐lasting challenge in the development of hybrid solid–hydrogel (HSH) systems for biomedical applications. Current strategies for hydrogel–solid bonding suffer from the complexity of processes, toxicity from residual crosslinkers, and substrate dependency; issues that hinder clinical adoption of HSH structures (HSHs). Overcoming these impediments, a dry, reagent‐free strategy is presented to create radical‐rich interlayers that enable initiator‐ and crosslinker‐free covalent attachment of hydrogels for the fabrication of robust HSHs. Evidence is provided in which long‐lived radicals embedded in ion‐assisted plasma polymerized coatings simultaneously drive hydrogel anchoring and in situ crosslinking on diverse non‐polymeric substrates, including titanium, stainless steel, and glass. GelMA, chitosan, and PVA‐Tyr hydrogels are immobilized with high stability, with coatings remaining intact after two months in aqueous media. Tuning the substrate bias voltage modulates radical concentration, enabling precise control over hydrogel thickness and crosslinking density with no need for extra reagents and/or crosslinkers. Cytocompatibility is confirmed with human mesenchymal stem cells and macrophages, with negligible inflammatory activation detected under the tested conditions. To showcase one application among many, fibroblasts on GelMA‐based HSHs exhibited enhanced early attachment, spreading, and proliferation, supporting their application in promoting soft tissue integration. This substrate‐independent, additive‐ and initiator‐free strategy embodies high‐quality‐by‐design principles, enabling a universal and scalable platform for the fabrication of HSH systems, particularly suited for applications requiring seamless integration between soft and hard materials, such as biomedical coatings, tissue‐interfacing constructs, and next‐generation soft robotics. This work introduces a substrate‐independent, reagent‐free plasma strategy that forms radical‐rich interlayers for covalent hydrogel attachment without initiators or crosslinkers. The long‐lived radicals drive in situ gelation, creating robust, cytocompatible hybrid solid–hydrogel constructs across diverse substrates. The approach enables tunable interfaces and offers a scalable pathway for tissue‐interfacing systems and emerging soft‐robotic technologies.

Chronic wounds, depending on the bacteria that caused the infection, can be associated with an extreme acidic or basic pH. Therefore, the application of pH-responsive hydrogels has been instigated for the delivery of therapeutics to chronic wounds. Herein, with the aim of developing a flexible pH-responsive hydrogel, we functionalized hydrophilic polyurethanes with either cationic (polyethylene imine) or anionic (succinic anhydride) moieties. A comprehensive physicochemical characterization of corresponding polymers was carried out. Particularly, when tested in aqueous buffers, the surface charge of hydrogel films was closely correlated with the pH of the buffers. The loading of the cationic and anionic hydrogel films with various compound models (bromophenol blue; negatively charged or Pyronin Y; positively charged) showed that the electrostatic forces between the polymeric backbone and the compound model will determine the ultimate release rate at any given pH. The potential application of these films for chronic wound drug delivery was assessed by loading them with an antibiotic (ciprofloxacin). In vitro bacterial culturing was performed using Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and Escherichia coli (E. coli). Results showed that at the same drug dosage, different release profiles achievable from cationic and anionic polyurethanes can yield different degrees of an antibacterial effect. Overall, our results suggest the potential application of cationic and anionic hydrophilic polyurethanes as flexible pH-responsive materials for the delivery of therapeutics to chronic wounds.

Novel nanostructured hybrid electrospun polyacrylonitrile (PAN) yarns with different graphene ratios were prepared using liquid crystal graphene oxide (LCGO) and PAN. It was found that the well-dispersed LCGO were oriented along the fiber axis in an electrified thin liquid jet during electrospinning. The graphene oxide sheets were well dispersed in the polar organic solvent, forming nematic liquid crystals upon increasing concentration. Twisted nanofibers were produced from aligned nanofibrous mats prepared by conventional electrospinning. It was found that the mechanical properties of the twisted nanofiber yarns increased even at very low LCGO loading. This research offers a new approach for the fabrication of continuous, strong, and uniform twisted nanofibers which could show promise in developing a novel carbon fiber precursor.