Magnus Nydén, Wei-Chen Huang, Shih Hwa Chiou, Mikael Larsson, Dean-Mo LIu, Yen Jen Wang, Meng Hsuan Hsiao, Larsson, Mikael, Huang, Wei-Chen, Hsiao, Meng-Hsuan, Wang, Yen-Jen, Nydén, Magnus, Chiou, Shih-Hwa, and Liu, Dean-Mo
Chitosan is among the most abundant biopolymers on earth and has been either used orexhibited potential in a wide variety of industrial and biomedical applications. With theadvancement of materials technologies, chitosan has been chemically modified to self-assemble into nanoarchitectures that are usable in advanced biomedical applications, suchas drug nanocarriers, macroscopic injectables, tissue-engineering scaffolds, and nanoimag-ing agents. Colloidal amphiphilically modified chitosan (AMC) is a relatively recent materialreceiving increased attention with numerous publications addressing the medical advan-tages of specific systems. To date, many reviews have focused on the synthesis andbiomedical properties of chitosan-based biomaterials, but a comprehensive study focusingon the colloidal properties of AMC in relation to biomedical performance appears to be lack-ing. This review provides a survey of the field, critically reviewing the colloidal propertiesand biomedical performance of AMC systems, such as nanoparticle drug delivery systemsand macroscopic medical devices. Finally, the future development, market potential, andclinical implications of these promising colloidal-structured biomaterials are summarised. Refereed/Peer-reviewed