Engineering Advanced Biomaterials for Vascular and Soft Tissue Regeneration

Advanced biomaterials play a central role in the development of functional platforms for biomedical repair and regeneration. A wide range of material systems is now being explored for vascular and soft tissue applications, including electrospun fibrous materials, injectable and thermosensitive hydrogels, decellularised and tissue-derived matrices, and bioactive composite biomaterials. These materials can be engineered to achieve tailored surface chemistry, porosity, degradation behaviour, mechanical compatibility, hemocompatibility, antimicrobial performance, and bioactivity. Such properties are highly relevant in vascular and soft tissue applications, including oral and dental sites, where shared challenges — interfacial integration with native tissue, control of the local biological response, ECM-mimicking architecture, and resistance to mechanical and microbial stress — make a unified biomaterials perspective both timely and productive. Despite major progress, important challenges remain in reproducibility, sterilisation, manufacturability, mechanical reliability, and preclinical validation. A focused collection on next-generation biomaterials across these interconnected application areas is therefore needed.This Research Topic aims to gather high-quality contributions on the design, processing, functionalisation, characterisation, and translational assessment of biomaterials for vascular and soft tissue applications. We welcome work spanning the full breadth of relevant material platforms, including but not limited to electrospun fibrous scaffolds, injectable and bioactive hydrogels, decellularised and tissue-derived matrices, and bioactive composite systems. Particular emphasis will be placed on systems such as vascular graft constructs, fibrous scaffold platforms, dentin- and collagen-based materials, pericardium- and extracellular matrix-derived biomaterials, and hybrid platforms incorporating bioactive agents, cells, or therapeutic molecules. We especially welcome studies that clarify how material selection, microstructure, fibre alignment, interfacial properties, crosslinking, and surface modification influence biological and functional outcomes, including cell adhesion, proliferation, differentiation, endothelialisation, angiogenesis, immune modulation, and antimicrobial activity. We also encourage work addressing hemocompatibility, compliance, burst strength, suture retention, degradation control, scale-up, and other translationally relevant biomaterial properties.We welcome Original Research, Review, Mini Review, Perspective, and Methods articles relevant to the Biomaterials section of Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology. Topics of interest include electrospun biomaterials; injectable and bioactive hydrogels; tissue-derived and decellularised biomaterials; bioactive composites; other emerging biomaterial platforms; vascular, oral, dental, and soft tissue biomaterial systems; scaffold surface modification; stem cell-supportive biomaterials; and advanced mechanical, physicochemical, biological, and degradation characterisation. Submissions may include in vitro and in vivo evaluation, provided the manuscript remains clearly centred on biomaterial innovation and performance. Authors should ensure that manuscripts provide strong mechanistic, experimental, or translational insight into biomaterial design and function, rather than focusing solely on descriptive biological outcomes or narrowly clinical questions. Topic editors: Ipek Yalcin Enis, Hande Sezgin, Ha Le-Bao Tran Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/80547/engineering-advanced-biomaterials-for-vascular-and-soft-tissue-regeneration