Hydrogels are materials with wide applications in several fields, including the biomedical and pharmaceutical industries. Their properties such as the capacity of absorbing great amounts of aqueous solutions without losing shape and mechanical properties, as well as loading drugs of different nature, including hydrophobic ones and biomolecules, give an idea of their versatility and promising demand. As they have been explored in a great number of studies for years, many routes of synthesis have been developed, especially for chemical/permanent hydrogels. In the same way, stimuli-responsive hydrogels, also known as intelligent materials, have been explored too, enhancing the regulation of properties such as targeting and drug release. By controlling the particle size, hydrogel on the micro- and nanoscale have been studied likewise and have increased, even more, the possibilities for applications of the so-called XXI century materials. In this paper, we aimed to produce an overview of the recent studies concerning methods of synthesis, biomedical, and pharmaceutical applications of macro-, micro, and nanogels.

中文翻译：

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用于生物医学和制药应用的宏观、微观和纳米结构水凝胶的最新综述


水凝胶是在多个领域广泛应用的材料，包括生物医学和制药行业。它们的特性，例如吸收大量水溶液而不变形和机械性能的能力，以及负载不同性质的药物（包括疏水性药物和生物分子）的能力，说明了它们的多功能性和有前景的需求。由于多年来对它们进行了大量的研究，已经开发了许多合成路线，特别是化学/永久水凝胶。同样，刺激响应水凝胶（也称为智能材料）也得到了探索，增强了靶向和药物释放等特性的调节。通过控制颗粒尺寸，微米和纳米尺度的水凝胶也得到了类似的研究，并进一步增加了所谓的二十一世纪材料的应用可能性。在本文中，我们旨在概述有关宏观、微米和纳米凝胶的合成方法、生物医学和制药应用的最新研究。