Diabetes is a kind of metabolic disease caused by the inability of the pancreas to control the blood glucose concentration. An effective management of diabetes relies on the frequent monitoring of blood glucose concentrations and the glucose responsive insulin release. Glucose-sensitive systems

resembling the pancreas with the abilities of feedback and equilibrium

can be responsive to the changes of environmental glucose concentration and exhibit extensive application prospect in controlling and treating diabetes. Carbohydrate

which is treated as one of the three substantial units as protein and nucleic acid

plays a great role in life body as an indispensable energy resource to biological processes. Therefore

the recognition of saccharides is very important in the fields of medical and life sciences. Phenylboronic acid is frequently used for recognizing and perceiving carbohydrate due to the high affinity between phenylboronic group and glycol. A fluorescent receptor sensing for saccharide can be constructed while a phenylboronic acid group is linked to a fluorophore. In this paper

the current research situations of phenylboronic acid-containing glucose-sensitive materials in the field of biomedicine are reviewed

and the latest research progress of such materials in the fields of drug sustained-controlled release systems and fluorescent probes used as the sugar molecule recognition are introduced emphatically. Furthermore

the future research direction of these glucose-sensitive materials is predicted.