Chapter 15: Multicomponent Hydrogels for Bioimaging and Biosensing Applications

Multicomponent hydrogels are practical materials for bioimaging and biosensing applications because of their biocompatibility, selectivity, and ability to interact with biological molecules. For biosensing, hydrogel-based sensors include both a signal recognition and a transduction component. For biosensing, the applications are broad and include the use of signal transducers that can be used in simple systems that may have applications in wearable electronics through mechanisms that require the use of complicated instrumentation. For bioimaging, multicomponent hydrogels have some of the same imaging properties as systems found in the body, but can easily bond with proteins and other biological molecules and can target specific tissues or other systems that are imaged. In bioimaging, multicomponent hydrogels are coupled with imaging equipment, including ultrasound, computed tomography, fluorescence, and others. In this chapter, we discuss methods used for both bioimaging and biosensing, the stimuli response of hydrogel materials, the types of signals obtained, signal transduction methods, and applications in both biosensing and bioimaging.