To celebrate the growth and development of the RSC Applied Polymers community and to highlight the remarkable authors who continue to contribute their high quality work to the journal, we would like to share the opinions and insights of these authors through this introductory blog post. Once dubbed #RSCAppliedfirst50, our blog posts aim to give a voice to the authors behind the research and hope that their insights might shed light upon growing challenges and progress in polymer science and its applications.
In this edition, we hear from Maya Yun about their review entitled ‘Emerging stimuli-responsive hydrogels for enhancing chronic wound healing‘.
An introduction to ‘Emerging stimuli-responsive hydrogels for enhancing chronic wound healing’
Chronic wounds are those that fail to heal within the normal timeframe, often showing delayed closure and prolonged inflammation. Hydrogels serve as excellent wound dressings because they maintain a moist environment and can be removed painlessly. However, conventional hydrogels are largely passive—they provide protection and hydration but cannot respond to the dynamic and often harsh microenvironment of chronic wounds. These limitations have prompted researchers to develop stimuli-responsive hydrogels that can sense and react to local biochemical or physical cues, offering a more adaptive and effective approach to wound healing.
Our review categorizes these smart hydrogels based on the stimuli they respond to, such as pH, reactive oxygen species (ROS), glucose, enzymes, temperature, and mechanical forces. We also discussed how the integration of bioactive components like nanoparticles, therapeutic proteins, or cells can accelerate healing, reduce infection, and support tissue regeneration. Additionally, we included modifications that can impart properties such as hemostatic activity, ROS scavenging, and antimicrobial effects into the hydrogel matrices themselves.
Overall, our paper illustrates how novel stimuli-responsive hydrogels are bridging materials science and regenerative medicine, offering new and exciting strategies for the effective treatment of chronic wounds.
An interview with Maya Yun
How do polymers play a key role in this application?
Polymers play a central role in forming the hydrogel matrix, and their composition can be tailored depending on the desired properties. Their network structures can be designed to respond to physiological cues—like changes in pH, reactive oxygen species (ROS), glucose levels, enzymes, temperature, or mechanical forces. Because of this responsiveness, these hydrogels can adapt directly within the wound site: they retain moisture, conform to irregular wound shapes, provide support and flexibility, and, most importantly, allow for controlled release of therapeutic agents such as antimicrobials or growth factors when triggered by the wound environment. In short, polymers are what give these hydrogels their “smart” behavior—enabling on-demand responses and adaptive mechanics that make them especially effective for treating chronic wounds.
What do you find most challenging about this research?
One of the main challenges in this area of research is precisely controlling the reactions and tuning the properties of polymers during hydrogel synthesis. Hydrogels are complex materials, and understanding how their various chemical components interact to influence structure and performance can be quite intricate. Developing new designs that are both innovative and feasible—both in terms of cost and time—adds another layer of difficulty. There’s also the need to carefully balance physical properties such as mechanical strength versus flexibility, optimize adhesion to tissue, and ensure the material remains safe, effective, and consistently reproducible.
What are the next steps in this research?
The next steps in this research would focus on translating these smart hydrogel systems from preclinical animal studies into human applications. Many of the studies discussed in this review rely on mouse wound models to evaluate healing outcomes. While these models are valuable for understanding basic mechanisms, they don’t fully capture the complexity of human skin physiology and wound environments. Future research should aim to bridge this gap by developing more clinically relevant testing models, conducting long-term biocompatibility and safety studies, and optimizing hydrogel formulations for human tissue responses. At the same time, improving the scalability, reproducibility, and cost-effectiveness of hydrogel synthesis will be key for potential clinical translation. Ultimately, the goal is to move from promising laboratory results to materials that can be safely and effectively used in real-world wound care settings.
Emerging stimuli-responsive hydrogels for enhancing chronic wound healing
Maya Yun, Logan Langford, Lewis Russell, Natalie Ndiforamang, Anran Zhang and Wubin Bai
RSC Appl. Polym., 2025, Advance Article. DOI: 10.1039/D5LP00092K
RSC Applied Polymers is a leading international journal for the application of polymers, including experimental and computational studies on both natural and synthetic systems. In this journal, you can discover cross-disciplinary scientific research that leverages polymeric materials in a range of applications. This includes high impact advances made possible with polymers across materials, biology, energy applications and beyond.