Progress on intelligent hydrogels based on RAFT polymerization: Design strategy, fabrication and the applications for controlled drug delivery

Intelligent hydrogels prepared by conventional methods face many serious challenges, such as uncontrollable stimulus-response and low response sensitivity. Recently, owing to the ability to efficiently construct hydrogel precursors with well-defined structure, RAFT polymerization provides a versatile strategy for the fabrication of intelligent hydrogels with improved stimulus-response properties, and expands their applications for controlled drug delivery. [Display omitted] Although intelligent hydrogels have shown bright potential application in biomedical fields, they were prepared by conventional methods and still face many serious challenges, such as uncontrollable stimulus-response and low response sensitivity. Recently, RAFT polymerization provides a versatile strategy for the fabrication of intelligent hydrogels with improved stimulus-response properties, owing to the ability to efficiently construct hydrogel precursors with well-defined structure, such as block copolymer, graft copolymer, star copolymer. In this review, we summarized the recent progress on intelligent hydrogels based on RAFT polymerization with emphasis on their fabrication strategies and applications for controlled drug delivery.