ABSTRACT
This chapter covers covalent bond forming chemical modification of alginates that are subsequently used for drug delivery and regenerative medicine applications. Generic examples of known alginate chemical modification reactions are briefly reviewed first followed by a more detailed analysis of covalent bond forming alginate modifications that have been reported in the literature in 2014–2018. These modification papers are grouped according to the type of chemical reaction used to initially modify the alginate. Most modifications start with either (i) periodate oxidation, (ii) amidation, or (iii) free radical reactions. After that grouping by initial reaction used, recent works were then split again into papers where the intended alginate use was (i) drug delivery or (ii) cell growth and survival.
