Hydroxyapatite (HAP) biomaterials with high biocompatibility, bioactivity, and osteoconductivity/osteoinductivity have many applications in the biomedical fields. The traditional HAP materials usually feature high brittleness. Although hybridizing HAP with polymers can obtain deformable materials, their deformability is mainly contributed by polymers. Recently, research progress has been made in the deformable HAP biomaterials with high flexibility, softness, or elasticity based on ultralong HAP nanowires (UHANWs). This article provides a brief review on the recent progress on this research topic. Specifically, the strategy is proposed for solving the high brittleness of HAP biomaterials using UHANWs; the synthetic strategies for UHANWs are presented; and a variety of deformable biomaterials based on UHANWs are discussed. This review article provides a new concept of deformable biomaterials consisting of UHANWs and will stimulate new research works on deformable HAP biomaterials and further contribute to their development and applications in the biomedical fields such as bone regeneration, artificial periosteum, skin wound healing, biomedical paper, medical test paper, drug delivery, diagnosis, and therapy.
Keywords: deformable biomaterials; hydroxyapatite; nanowire; paper; porous materials.