Over the past few decades, synthetic and natural polymers have demonstrated promising applications as biomedical materials. Functional biomedical polymers are of specific interest, as they exhibit an extensive variability of physical and chemical properties, allowing for the adjustment of biocompatibility, biodegradability, stimuli-responsiveness, and bioactivities. The current advancement of medical technology results in new requirements for multifunctional and adaptive polymer materials, which have to be addressed by appropriate schemes of synthesis and modification.

Functional polymer biomaterials are easily processed into various device modalities, such as nanoparticles, nanofibers, microspheres, microfibers, hydrogels, membranes, and scaffolds. These polymer devices, with different patterns and versatile functionality, are showing considerable applications in almost all biomedical fields, including diagnosis, controlled delivery of therapeutic agents, efficient adjuvants of immunotherapy, regenerative medicine, and medical devices.

This special issue aims to provide a comprehensive collection of the latest advances in the development of preparation approaches, the mechanism underlying structure-property correlations, and the current and emerging biomedical applications of functional polymer-based materials. Original research papers and review articles are welcomed.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Polymerization or postpolymerization modification
• Functionality and characterizations of polymers
• Functional polymers with biological activities (e.g., antitumor, antidiabetic, or antimicrobial activities)
• Polymer biomaterials for fabrication
• Polymer biomaterials for diagnosis
• Polymer biomaterials for delivery of bioactive agents
• Polymer biomaterials as adjuvant of immunotherapy
• Polymer biomaterials for regenerative medicine (e.g., tissue engineering of bone, cartilage, nerve, and skin)
• Polymer biomaterials as bioadhesive agents