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چکیده
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Hydrogels are the most iconic class of soft materials, and since their first report in the literature, theyhave attracted the attention of uncountable researchers. Over the past two decades, hydrogels havebecome smart and sophisticated materials with numerous applications. This class of soft materials havebeen playing a significant role in biomedicine due to their tunable and often programmable properties.Hydrogels from renewable polymers have been popularized in biomedical applications as they are oftenbiocompatible, easily accessible, and inexpensive. The challenge however has been to find an ideal plant-based hydrogel for biomedicine that can mimic critical properties of human tissues in terms of structure,function, and performance. In addition, natural polymers can readily be functionalized to engineer theirchemical and physical uproperties pertinent to drug delivery and tissue engineering. Here, the mostrecent advances in the synthesis, fabrication, and applications of plant-based hydrogels in biomedicalengineering are reviewed. We cover essential and updated information about plants as green sourcesof biopolymers for hydrogel synthesis, general aspects of hydrogels and plant-based hydrogels, and thorough discussion regarding the use of such hydrogels in the biomedical engineering area. Furthermore,this review details the present status of the field and answers several important questions about thepotential of plant-based hydrogels in advanced biomedical applications including therapeutics, tissueengineering, wound dressing, and diagnostics. , etc.
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