Recent insight and perspective of marine-inspired biopolymers for wound healing applications – A review

There is an increasing necessasity for advanced, sustainable, and biocompatible materials for wound healing as therapeutic and diagnostic products. Marine environments, characterized by high biodiversity, offer an underutilized source of natural resources with enormous potential for creating novel materials for dressings. This review highlights the revolutionary nature of polymeric biomaterials of marine origin, with a focus on polysaccharides, like alginate, chitosan, and carrageenan; proteins, such as collagen and gelatin. These biopolymers are outstanding in their physicochemical properties, such as biodegradability, bioactivity, and modifiable mechanical strength, which enable their use in wound-healing systems. Besides, these biomaterials may be easily chemically and physically modified, enabling enhanced multifunctionality and integration into complex biomedical environments. Marine-based biopolymers are renewable, abundant, and offer environmentally benign alternatives to synthetic materials, thereby resolving sustainability concerns in large-scale biomedical manufacturing. This report addresses the recent development of maritime-derived polymers and the resulting wound dressings for state-of-the-art wound healing, highlighting significant challenges and future perspectives.