Lucia Gómez Bernabé

Former Visiting student (University Francisco de Vitoria, Madrid, Spain)

Fabrication and characterization of bioactive glass scaffolds coated with mesoporous nanoparticles for bone regeneration applications

 

Supervisors:  Dr. Qaisar Nawaz, Prof. Aldo R. Boccaccini

Bioactive glass scaffolds are being widely considered for bone tissue engineering, as they have great characteristics to stimulate bone regeneration. They are biodegradable, cytocompatible, promote cell adhesion, stimulate osteogenesis and form a strong bond with bone [1]. There are multiple techniques to fabricate scaffolds but, in this project, the foam replica method, a highy versatile and relatively simple technique, will be used as it is affordable and straightfoward [2]. These scaffolds will be coated by mesoporous bioactive glass nanoparticles, synthesized by sol-gel technique [3]. The scaffolds properties will be enhanced by coating them with pytotherapeutic agents. The loading and release kinetics of pytotherapeutic agents will be investigated using UV-vis spectroscopy.  The prepared MBGNs and scaffolds will be characterized using different state of art characterization techniques.

[1] Jones, J. R., Ehrenfried, L. M., & Hench, L. L. (2006). Optimising bioactive glass scaffolds for bone tissue engineering. Biomaterials, 27(7), 964–973.

[2] Chen, Q. Z., et al. (2006). 45S5 Bioglass®-derived glass–ceramic scaffolds for bone tissue engineering, Biomaterials 27, 2414-2425.

[3] Zheng, K., & Boccaccini, A. R. (2017). Sol-gel processing of bioactive glass nanoparticles: A review. Advances in Colloid and Interface Science, 249, 363–373.