| Abstract Scope |
Bioactive glass, invented in 1960s, was initially targeted for soft tissue or non-loaded hard tissue regeneration. Most recently, research has been conducted to explore their applications in vascularization, wound healing and beyond. To meet the requirements for these emerging applications, glasses in the form of particulates, microspheres, fibers, and porous scaffolds have been developed. However, progress in the commercialization of bioactive glasses have been relatively slow, with the most successful ones being 45S5-based Perioglas®, Novabone® and NovaMin®. Exploration and inventions of new glass compositions with a step change in bioactivity and performance are critical to enable new applications. Meanwhile, fundamental understanding of the glass manufacturing attributes, such as melting and forming in an industrial continuous-unit melting system, is important to enable the scale-up and industrialization. |