Biomedical applications of collagen.

Collagen is regarded as one of the most useful biomaterials. The excellent biocompatibility and safety due to its biological characteristics, such as biodegradability and weak antigenecity, made collagen the primary resource in medical applications. The main applications of collagen as drug delivery systems are collagen shields in ophthalmology, sponges for burns/wounds, mini-pellets and tablets for protein delivery, gel formulation in combination with liposomes for sustained drug delivery, as controlling material for transdermal delivery, and nanoparticles for gene delivery and basic matrices for cell culture systems. It was also used for tissue engineering including skin replacement, bone substitutes, and artificial blood vessels and valves. This article reviews biomedical applications of collagen including the collagen film, which we have developed as a matrix system for evaluation of tissue calcification and for the embedding of a single cell suspension for tumorigenic study. The advantages and disadvantages of each system are also discussed.