On textile biomedical engineering

The demand for advanced fiber biomaterials and medical devices has risen rapidly with the increasing of aging population in the world. To address this grand societal challenge, textile biomedical engineering (TBE) has been defined as a holistic and integrative approach of designing and engineering advanced fiber materials for fabricating textile structures and devices to achieve various functions such as drug delivery, tissue engineering and artificial implants, pressure therapy and thermal therapy, bioelectric/magnetic detection and stimulation for the medical treatment and rehabilitation of human body. TBE is multidisciplinary in nature and needs integration of cross disciplinary expertise in medical science, healthcare professionals, physiologists, scientists and engineers in chemistry, materials, mechanics, electronics, computing, textile and designers. Engineering fiber materials and designing textile devices for biomedical applications involve the integration of the fundamental research in physics, chemistry, mathematics, and computational science with the development of engineering principles and understanding on the relationship between textile materials/devices and human physiology, behaviour, medicine and health. Theoretical concepts have been advanced together with creating new knowledges created from molecules to cells, organs and body-textile systems, and developing advanced fiber materials, innovative textile devices and functional apparel products for healthcare, comfort, protection against harmful external environment, diseases prevention, diagnosis and treatment, as well as rehabilitations. A holistic, integrative and quantitative approach has been adopted for deriving the technical solutions of how to engineer fibers and textiles for the benefits of human health. This paper reviews the theoretical foundations for textile biomedical engineering and advances in the recent years.