Alginate Utilization in Tissue Engineering and Cell Therapy

Due to the structural similarity to the extracellular matrix, nowadays, hydrogels are widely used for tissue engineering applications. Among the various hydrogels, alginate is considered a very useful biomaterial that has found numerous applications in the biomedical field due to its favorable properties, including biocompatibility and ease of gelation. It has been used to design tissue engineering constructs of various structures, such as porous scaffolds, microspheres, films, and microcapsules for drug and cell delivery and various tissue engineering applications particularly for bone, cartilage, muscle, and vascular tissue engineering. This chapter will provide a comprehensive overview of the applications of alginate-based hydrogels as various forms of constructs and scaffolds for tissue engineering.