ABSTRACT
Thermoresponsive polymers are appealing smart materials for a broad range of applications. Polymers with lower critical solution temperature (LCST) behavior have gained significant interest as they undergo a solubility phase transition in water from a soluble one-phase system at low temperatures to a demixed two-phase system when heated above the LCST. This chapter covers the recent advances in the development of synthetic LCST-type thermoresponsive “smart” polymer materials for biomedical applications, specifically for drug delivery, gene delivery and tissue engineering or cell-sheet engineering. The focus of the chapter is on the structural as well as polymer design aspects that are highly essential to exploit such LCST-type “smart” polymer materials for cutting-edge biomedical applications.
