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This review reports the promising prospects of poly(lactic acid) (PLA) based nanostructured materials considering two of their main potential uses, packaging and tissue engineering. The review initially discusses the significant progresses in the development of PLA bionanocomposites for packaging applications. The review then continues with a comprehensive analysis of the recent advances in tissue engineering applications focusing in the synthesis of PLA nanoparticles, the processing of PLA based multifunctional nanocomposites and PLA surface modification techniques. In summary, the review presents the current state of nanostructured PLA materials and establishes the exciting present and future prospects of these materials at the interface of chemistry, biology and material science.