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Since the birth of synthetic hydrogel 60 years ago, hydrogels possessing various useful properties and functions have been developed. The research directions of hydrogels have expanded to diverse application fields as well. However, in contrast to natural hydrogels found in biological soft tissues, which have elaborate structures from molecular to macroscopic scales and sophisticated functions, synthetic hydrogels only have very simple structures and naive functions. We have great opportunities to develop hydrogel materials through learning from nature. This Perspective discusses the opportunities and challenges in the fabrication of hydrogels with excellent physical functions by mimicking biological structures at different length scales.
Fan et al. (Wed,) studied this question.