Dear Colleagues,

We would like to invite you to contribute a full article, short communication, or review article to the Special Issue entitled ‘Hyaluronic acid-based polymers and biomaterials’, which will include topics on hyaluronic acid and its conjugates with polymers and biomaterials. In recent years hyaluronic acid has been widely used in many therapeutic fields, since it is biocompatible, biodegradable, nontoxic, and non-immunogenic. Moreover, hyaluronic acid has unique physicochemical properties that could be exploited in several fields, such as tissue engineering, drug delivery, imaging, or surgical applications.

The Special Issue is concerned with the use of hyaluronic acid for the preparation of conjugates with a wide range of molecules, focusing on the polymers and compounds used in biomedical fields. Hyaluronic acid is a very attractive molecule, as it has a large molar mass in which the carboxylic groups and the primarily hydroxyl groups of alternating units of D-glucuronic acid and N-acetyl-D-glucosamine provide appropriate sites for conjugation. Moreover, the carboxyl groups on the D-glucuronic acid residues are dissociated at the physiological pH, making the hyaluronic acid a negatively-charged polymer that could form electrostatic interactions with the molecules possessing basic groups. Hyaluronic acid-based conjugates could solve the solubility problems, improve a drug’s blood plasma half-life, and form viscoelastic hydrogels. Finally, hyaluronic acid receptors are overexpressed on many tumour cells, and thus this unique polymer could also be used as a targeting moiety. On these bases, the contributions addressing the topics related to the design, synthesis, characterization, and formulation of polymers and biomaterials conjugated to hyaluronic acid are very welcome.

Prof. Dr. Silvia Arpicco
Prof. Dr. Barbara Stella
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Polymers is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Hyaluronic acid
• Polymers
• Bioconjugates
• Nanocarriers
• Active drug targeting
• Biomaterials
• Hydrogels