摘要： The ultimate goal of the research and development of materials (other than drugs) for applications in medicine, which we call biomaterials, has always been to emulate natural materials. Since the natural target for biomaterials, ie, our body’s tissues and organs, is exceedingly complex, it is not surprising that in many instances the laboratory-made materials cannot match in their performance the natural entities they are meant to augment or replace. This is obviously different from the development of materials for industrial applications, which usually perform better than their natural counterparts (if the latter exist), and also evolve relatively fast, unhindered by the biological constraints inherent to living systems. For too long, an acceptable end performance in the short term was the main requirement from a biomaterial, with little attention paid to changing its bulk and/or surface properties through the manipulation of composition and/or structure, in order to maximize the clinical outcome. Over the past six decades or so, however, the progress in bringing the properties and functionality of biomaterials close to those of their biological targets has been remarkable. While the previous statements are valid for the ophthalmic biomaterials too, their development has shown some particular features. The general developments in the field of biomaterials have customarily been gauged through the achievements in the branches of orthopaedic biomaterials and, to a lesser extent, biomaterials for cardiology or dentistry, while the progress of biomaterials for the eye has usually been ignored or seldom presented.