Abstract

Affecting approximately 17,000 new people each year, spinal cord injury (SCI) is a devastating injury that leads to permanent paraplegia or tetraplegia. Current pharmacological approaches are limited in their ability to ameliorate this injury pathophysiology, as many are not delivered locally, for a sustained duration, or at the correct injury time point. With this review, we aim to communicate the importance of combinatorial biomaterial and pharmacological approaches that target certain aspects of the dynamically changing pathophysiology of SCI. After reviewing the pathophysiology timeline, we present experimental biomaterial approaches to provide local sustained doses of drug. In this review, we present studies using a variety of biomaterials, including hydrogels, particles, and fibers/conduits for drug delivery. Subsequently, we discuss how each may be manipulated to optimize drug release during a specific time frame following SCI. Developing polymer biomaterials that can effectively release drug to target specific aspects of SCI pathophysiology will result in more efficacious approaches leading to better regeneration and recovery following SCI.

Department(s)

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering

Publication Status

Open Access

Comments

National Science Foundation, Grant 1150125

Keywords and Phrases

Biomaterials; Drug delivery; Fibers; Hydrogels; Inflammation; Particles; Regeneration; Spinal cord injury

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

1663-9812

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Final Version

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2025 The Authors, All rights reserved.

Creative Commons Licensing

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Publication Date

10 May 2017

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