Building mechanochemistry into soft biomaterials

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Building mechanochemistry into soft biomaterials
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Nature Reviews Bioengineering (2026)Cite this article

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When soft tissue is mechanically deformed, new material properties and functionalities can emerge. Through rational design of dynamic covalent chemistry and network architecture, new force-catalysed activities in hydrogels can be achieved, forming the basis of a ‘mechanochemical toolbox’ to expand the functionality of soft synthetic biomaterials.

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Fig. 1: Approaches to build mechanochemistry into hydrogels.

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Acknowledgements

K.A.K. thanks J. Kruzic from the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering for discussions and for his shared vision of bringing mechanochemistry to hydrogel biomaterials. K.A.K. thanks C. Ranaweera from the School of Chemistry for her assistance in generating the artwork shown in Fig. 1. K.A.K. acknowledges the Australian Research Council for funding the research described in this Comment (DP210103654).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, The University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Kristopher A. Kilian

  2. School of Chemistry, The University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Kristopher A. Kilian

  3. Australian Centre for NanoMedicine, The University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Kristopher A. Kilian

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  1. Kristopher A. Kilian

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Correspondence to Kristopher A. Kilian.

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The author declares no competing interests.

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Kilian, K.A. Building mechanochemistry into soft biomaterials. Nat Rev Bioeng (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44222-026-00406-w

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