Smart Materials for Biomedical Applications: The Usefulness of Shape-Memory Polymers

Acknowledgments: This research work was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science & Technology (FCT) through the Project references CMUP-ERI/TIC/0021/2014 and UID/Multi/04044/2013. In addition, the authors would like to thank Portuguese National Innovation Agency (ANI) through the Project reference POCI-01-0247-FEDER-017963 and European Regional Development Fund (FEDER), through COMPETE2020 under the PT2020 program (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-023423). The authors (MYK and GBH) acknowledge the financial support of UGC, New Delhi under UPE-FAR-I Program [F. No. 14-3/2012 (NS/PE)] and DST, New Delhi under DST-PURSE-Phase-II Program [F. No. SR/PURSE Phase 2/13(G)].This review describes available smart biomaterials for biomedical applications. Biomaterials have gained special attention because of their characteristics, along with biocompatibility, biodegradability, renewability, and inexpensiveness. In addition, they are also sensitive towards various stimuli such as temperature, light, magnetic, electro, pH and can respond to two or more stimuli at the same time. In this manuscript, the suitability of stimuli-responsive smart polymers was examined, providing examples of its usefulness in the biomedical applications.