From the Back Cover
This volume presents the recent developments on the biomedical applications of chitosan and its derivatives. Chitosan exhibits unique properties such as non-toxicity, biodegradability and biocompatibility. Since its chemical structure and properties can be easily modified, it can be an ideal candidate as a biomaterial. Consequently, chitosan and its derivatives are being developed in different forms such as nanoparticles, micelles, nanofibers, hydrogels, films and 3D porous materials for various biomedical applications, ranging from drug and gene delivery to tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. The chapters of this volume focus on the potential use of chitosan and its derivatives as a hemostatic agent, tissue sealants, tissue engineering scaffolds, delivery carriers for bioactive molecules in bone tissue engineering and wound dressings. Some chapter's deal with recent advancements of chitosan-based biomaterials as a drug, gene and transdermal drug delivery carrier. In addition, the volume focusses on the prospects of chitosan-based systems for the treatment of cancer, eye and other infectious diseases. The volume will be of interest to material scientists, chemists and biotechnologists by providing a better understanding of the physicochemical and biological characteristics of chitosan and its derivatives to develop more appropriate and innovative chitosan-based materials modified for unlimited practical applications in biomedical fields.
Dr. R. Jayakumar - Professor at Amrita Center for Nanosciences and Molecular Medicine (ACNSMM), Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham Kochi-682041, India-specializing in the area of Polymeric Biomaterials. Dr. R. Jayakumar joined ACNSMM during November-2007. He received his Ph.D. in Polymer Chemistry from the Anna University, Chennai, India (2002). He has over 255 Journal publications, 10 book chapter and 10 patents to his credit. His publications have been cited more than 18400 times with h-index-71. In addition, he has also edited and published 5 books. Dr. Jayakumar's research laboratory at ACNSMM is mainly interested in the development of polymeric nanofibers, nanogels, nanoparticles, nanocomposite scaffolds and injectable hydrogels for tissue engineering, drug delivery and wound healing applications. He was awarded the University Postdoctoral Fellowship from Chonbuk National University (2002-2003), South Korea and FCT Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Government of Portugal (2003-2005). In addition, he was also awarded the prestigious JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowship (2005-2007) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), Japan. He has received the "Best Paper Award" from Journal of Materials Science Materials in Medicine (Springer) and IET Nanobiotechnology Journal. He received "Faculty Researcher Award-2016" from Indian Chitin and Chitosan Society and "MRSI Medal-2017" from Materials Research Society of India. He also received "India Research Excellence-Citation Awards 2017 (Health & Medical Science area)" from Clarivate Analytics, Web of Science. He is also reviewer and editorial board member of many international journals. He also completed more than 20 funded projects and 2 are ongoing.
Dr. M. Prabaharan - Professor at Department of Chemistry, Hindustan Institute of Technology and Science (Deemed to be University), Chennai, India. He received his doctoral degree in Polymer Chemistry from the Anna University, Chennai, India. To his credit, he published more than 80 research papers and 25 book chapters. His citation index and h-index are about 6600 and 35, respectively. In addition, he has edited and published four books in the area of biomaterials. Dr. Prabaharan's research is mainly focused on the development of polymeric nanocarriers for targeted drug delivery, polymeric hydrogels and membranes for wound healing and tissue engineering. Dr. Prabaharan had post-doctoral research experience in the University of Minho, Portugal and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA. He also served as a Senior Researcher at the Taiwan Textile Research Institute, Taiwan. He has completed several research projects sponsored by reputed funding agency of government of India.
