Scientists made a gel that can fix itself and added the natural peptide LL‑37, which helps kill bacteria and calm inflammation, to speed up healing of diabetic wounds. The gel works by combining several weak bonds that let it stay together and release LL‑37’s benefits, leading to better blood vessel growth and less oxidative damage.

Developing an effective treatment strategy of drug delivery to improve diabetic wound healing remains a major challenge in clinical practice nowadays, due to multidrug-resistant bacterial infections, angiopathy, and oxidative damage in the wound microenvironment. Herein, an effective and convenient strategy was designed through a self-healing multiple-dynamic-bond cross-linked hydrogel with interpenetrating networks, which was formed by multiple-dynamic-bond cross-linking of reversible catechol-Fe³⁺ coordinate bonds, hydrogen bonding, and Schiff base bonds. The excellent autonomous healing of the hydrogel was initiated and accelerated by Schiff bonds with reversible breakage between 3,4-dihydroxybenzaldehyde containing catechol and aldehyde groups and chitosan chains, and further consolidated by the co-optation of other noncovalent interactions contributed of hydrogen bonding and Fe³⁺ coordinate bonds. Intriguingly, cathelicidin LL-37 was introduced and uniformly dispersed in the dynamic interpenetrating networks of the hydrogel as a bioactive molecular to orchestrate the diabetic wound healing microenvironment. This multifunctional wound dressing can significantly promote diabetic wound healing by antibacterial activity, immunomodulation, anti-inflammation, neovascularization, and antioxidant activity. Therefore, this study provided an effective and safe strategy for guiding the diabetic wound treatment in clinical applications.