Molecular imprinting within hydrogels.

Hydrogels have been used primarily in the pharmaceutical field as carriers for delivery of various drugs, peptides and proteins. These systems have included stimuli-responsive gels that exhibit reversible swelling behavior and hence can show modulated release in response to external stimuli such as pH, temperature, ionic strength, electric field, or specific analyte concentration gradients. The focus of this article is to review molecular imprinting within hydrogels and discuss recent efforts on analyte-responsive intelligent gels, specifically suggesting the possibility of utilizing molecular imprinting strategies to impart analyte specificity and responsiveness within these systems.