Lignin, as the most abundant aromatic renewable biopolymer in nature, has long been regarded as waste and simply discarded from the pulp and paper industry. In recent years, with many breakthroughs in lignin chemistry, pretreatment, and processing techniques, a lot of the inherent bioactivities of lignin, including antioxidant activities, antimicrobial activities, biocompatibilities, optical properties, and metal‐ion chelating and redox activities, have been discovered and this has opened a new field not only for lignin‐based materials but also for biomaterials. In this Review, the biological activities of lignin and drug/gene delivery and bioimaging applications of various types of lignin‐based material are summarized. In addition, the challenges and limitations of lignin‐based materials encountered during the development of biomedical applications are also discussed.

中文翻译：

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基于木质素的微和纳米材料及其在生物医学应用中的复合材料。

木质素作为自然界中最丰富的芳烃可再生生物聚合物，长期以来一直被视为废物，仅从制浆和造纸工业中丢弃。近年来，在木质素化学，预处理和加工技术方面取得了许多突破，木质素的许多固有生物活性包括抗氧化活性，抗微生物活性，生物相容性，光学性质以及金属离子螯合和氧化还原活性已被发现。这不仅为木质素基材料而且为生物材料开辟了一个新领域。在本综述中，总结了木质素的生物活性和药物/基因的传递以及各种类型的木质素基材料的生物成像应用。此外，