Metal–organic frameworks integrating Chinese medicinal bioactives for wound repair and burn applications

Burn dressings must support tissue preservation, infection control, and epithelial repair while accommodating changes in exudate and wound depth. Defined bioactive compounds associated with Chinese medicinal plants offer pharmacological starting points, but their performance depends on chemical stability, local exposure, and delivery within the dressing. Metal–organic frameworks provide several ways to address these requirements through guest loading, coordination assembly, and integration with hydrogels or fibrous matrices. This narrative review examines how those material choices influence wound repair, with particular attention to the evidence supporting burn applications. We distinguish direct thermal-injury studies from excisional, diabetic, infected, and tumor-associated wound models and separate carrier-mediated delivery from systems in which a bioactive compound forms part of the framework or is delivered by another component of the dressing. Curcumin-containing formulations provide direct preclinical burn examples, whereas berberine, baicalein, quercetin, shikonin, and resveratrol systems contribute complementary evidence on antimicrobial activity, redox regulation, and local delivery. These studies identify opportunities to coordinate drug exposure with material degradation; they do not establish interchangeable indications across wound types. The review develops a comparison framework linking particle size, surface chemistry, stability, and release to clinically relevant outcomes. Added value should be assessed against dose-matched free compounds, unloaded materials, and established carriers using epithelial repair, tissue tolerance, infection burden, and dressing performance alongside wound closure. Priorities for burn translation are exposure measurements in relevant wound environments, preservation of viable tissue, reproducible manufacture, and follow-up of scar function. Matching the location and timing of each material function to a defined burn-care task offers a practical route for selecting formulations for further development.