Nanocellulose in biomedicine: Current status and future prospect

Nanocellulose, a unique and promising natural material extracted from native cellulose, has gained much attention for its use as biomedical material, because of its remarkable physical properties, special surface chemistry and excellent biological properties (biocompatibility, biodegradability and low toxicity). Three different types of nanocellulose, viz. cellulose nanocrystals (CNC), cellulose nanofibrils (CNF) and bacterial cellulose (BC), are introduced and compared in terms of production, properties and biomedical applications in this article. The advancement of nanocellulose-based biomedical materials is summarized and discussed on the analysis of latest studies (especially reports from the past five years). Selected studies with significant findings are emphasized, and focused topics for nanocellulose in biomedicine research in this article include the discussion at the level of molecule (e.g. tissue bioscaffolds for cellular culture; drug excipient and drug delivery; and immobilization and recognition of enzyme/protein) as well as at the level of macroscopic biomaterials (e.g. blood vessel and soft tissue substitutes; skin and bone tissue repair materials; and antimicrobial materials). Functional modification of nanocellulose will determine the potential biomedical application for nanocellulose, which is also introduced as a separated section in the article. Finally, future perspectives and possible research points are proposed in Section 5.