The present work involves the development of curcumin loaded silver hydrogel nanocomposites based on acrylamide and 2-acrylamido-2-methyl propanesulfonic acid, as a template by redox co-polymerization in the presence of hydrophilic crosslinker N,N 1-methylenebisacrylamide. Silver nitrate was taken as the metal precursor and sodium borohydride as a reducing agent. The formation of silver nanoparticles was monitored using UV-Vis absorption spectroscopy. The developed hydrogel silver nanocomposites (HSNC) were characterized by FTIR, UV-Vis, thermogravimetric analysis, scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. The curcumin loading and release characteristics were performed for different hydrogel systems. The developed HSNCs were evaluated for preliminary antibacterial applications. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.