Introduction: Silica-based aerogels are the applicable and well-known porous materials that has become the interest of the biomedical community. Silica aerogels are prepared from silica gels where the liquid is drawn out of the network structure so that its three-dimensional structure is not disturbed. Looking at from a nanotechnologists perspective, silica aerogels will have a special place in nanotechnology due to their porous structure, low weight, pore size regulation, and expanded surface. Aerogels have great potential for a variety of biomedical applications. These unique properties of aerogels have led to their use in biomedical fields such as drug delivery, antibacterial, and regenerative medicine. Engaging with materials whose characteristics can be customized is very important in the medical field. This review summarizes biomedical applications of number of aerogels and discusses the potential toxicity induced by silica aerogels.
Methods: PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar, Embase, and Web-of-Science databases were searched using several combinations of keywords, including ‘Antimicrobial feature’, ‘Tissue regeneration’, ‘Drug delivery’, and ‘Drug delivery’.
Results: The application of silica-based aerogels in biomedicine is highly appreciated owing to their customized structure and their surprising parameters that could provide applied methods and solutions in different areas. Applications such as drug delivery, tissue engineering, and antibacterial is receiving scientist's consideration, making silica aerogels more and more interesting as a multi-application biomaterial to benefit healthy life. Silica aerogels are superior over the other nanomaterials because of their high porosity, low density, and tailorable structure, which turns them being as delivery platform for drug and bioactive materials and a platform for implants and antibacterial agents. It is assumed that drugs' stability, pharmakokinetic and dissolution rate could be affected through adsorption onto aerogels. It is undoubtedly an advantage since developing a new drug requires much time and, more importantly, financial expenditures. Therefore, it is necessary to continue research in this direction.
Conclusion: While tremendous advances in silica aerogels have been made, more investigations are needed to handle the difficulties associated with these materials' commercialization and medical applications. However, to accept silica aerogels in the market, the preclinical and clinical stages must be fully tested. Furthermore, affordable product cost and improved biological characteristics of silica aerogels will also determine the speed of commercialization in this journey. Thus, silica aerogels with in vivo and in vitro studies provide alternative platforms for new therapeutic applications.
Keywords: Antimicrobial feature, Tissue regeneration, Drug delivery, Toxicology