[When textiles help your recovery]

Textiles are widely used in the biomedical domain, particularly in wound dressings or as implantable devices for strengthening or even replacing some damaged organs. Nowadays they present more and more sophisticated functionalities contributing to the healing process, to the organs regeneration, and fight against infection or thrombosis. Advanced spinning technologies of biostable or bioresorbable polymers and surface treatment technologies are often used, as well as nanotechnologies, to implement two main strategies for development of bio-active textiles. A long or medium term technology is obtained by grafting the bio-active molecule through stable chemical bonds while a short term activity is produced by using "reservoir" systems such as hydrogels and cyclodextrins that release the active agents in situ. ‡.