Functionalised Injectable Hydrogels: Material Design and Delivery Strategies for Oral and Periodontal Tissue Regeneration

Injectable hydrogels are gaining traction as a minimally invasive platform for repairing oral and periodontal tissue, offering tunable mechanical properties, biocompatibility, and the ability to conform to irregular defect geometries without surgical intervention. Functionalising these hydrogels through the incorporation of bioactive molecules, antimicrobial agents, or stimuli-responsive crosslinking chemistries allows precise control over degradation, cell adhesion, and localised drug or growth factor release, addressing persistent oral tissue repair challenges such as periodontal defects and mucosal wound healing.Despite this promise, translating functionalised hydrogels into reliable oral biomaterials remains difficult. The oral cavity’s dynamic, fluid-rich environment subjects implanted materials to mechanical stress from salivary flow and mastication, while its resident microbiota raises the risk of colonisation and infection. Overcoming these constraints requires deliberate materials engineering: dual-crosslinked or hybrid polymer networks for mechanical resilience, mucoadhesive chemistries for prolonged retention, antimicrobial peptide or nanoparticle functionalisation for infection control, and in situ gelling systems compatible with minimally invasive delivery.This Research Topic invites original research, reviews, and methods articles that advance the materials science of functionalised injectable hydrogels for oral and periodontal applications, covering novel polymer chemistries and crosslinking strategies, bioactive and antimicrobial functionalisation, structure-property-function relationships, characterisation techniques, and hydrogel-biomaterial interfaces relevant to periodontal and oral mucosal regeneration. Topic editors: Lingli Li, Xiang Li, Jianfeng Jin, LEI WANG Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/86523/functionalised-injectable-hydrogels-material-design-and-delivery-strategies-for-oral-and-periodontal-tissue-regeneration