Conferences and Lectures - John F. McMahon Lecturer
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Holmes Auditorium, Harder Hall
11:20 a.m.

Aldo R. Boccaccini is Professor and Head of the Institute of Biomaterials at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany. Previously he was Professor of Materials Science at Imperial College London, UK, where he has remained as Visiting Professor. Boccaccini holds a MEng degree in Nuclear Engineering from Instituto Balseiro (Argentina), PhD (Dr-Ing.) from RWTH Aachen University of Technology (Germany) and Habilitation from Ilmenau University of Technology (Germany). During his post-doctoral career, he had appointments at the University of Birmingham (UK), the University of California at San Diego (USA) and the Ilmenau University of Technology, Germany. The research activities of Prof. Boccaccini are in the broad area of glasses, ceramics and polymer/glass composites for biomedical, functional and/or structural applications. He is the author or co-author of more than 450 scientific papers and 15 book chapters.

In the last few years he has developed extensive research activities in the area of scaffold materials for tissue engineering applications and has developed a new family of highly porous bioactive and degradable composite scaffolds combining bioactive glasses and biodegradable polymers The addition of a bioactive component is seen as a significant improvement towards clinical applications (third-generation biomaterials) due to the possibility of tuning the degradation rate, mechanical properties and biological response of the scaffold. He has also pioneered the development of novel scaffolds containing carbon nanotubes which provide not only a suitable nanotopography but also enhanced functionality for bone regeneration. Prof. Boccaccini has also developed the electrophoretic deposition technique for production of nanostructured materials and composites with defined surface topography with potential use in the biomedical field.

His achievements in the area of materials science have been recognized with the award of the Materials Science and Technology Prize 2003 by the Federation of European Materials Society (FEMS) and the Verulam Medal and Prize 2003 of the Institute of Materials Minerals and Mining (IOM3). He has been elected Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining of the UK. In addition to his research and teaching activities, Prof. Boccaccini was the Chair of the London Materials Society (2005-2006) and a member of the EU board of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS) (2006-2010). Boccaccini is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal "Materials Letters" (Elsevier) and serves in the editorial board of several recognized international journals including Journal of Materials Science, J. Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine, International Materials Reviews, J. Biomaterials Applications, Advanced Engineering Materials, Advances in Applied Ceramics, Key Engineering Materials and J. Mater. Processing Technology. Prof. Boccaccini was an International Ambassador of Imperial College London (2006-2009). He has been a visiting professor at different universities around the world, including Japan, Italy, Singapore, Germany, Argentina and Poland. Boccaccini is the founder of the International Conferences Series on Electrophoretic Deposition and he was the Chairman of the three conferences of the series held so far in Canada (2002), Italy (2005) and Japan (2008). Prof. Boccaccini was the co-chair of the EUROMAT 2009 conference, the largest Materials conference in Europe, held in Glasgow, UK, in 2009. Boccaccini is the recipient of the Ivor Jenkins Medal 2010 of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (UK). Very Recently (2011) he has been elected Fellow of the American Ceramic Society.

Abstract - Development and Applications of Bioactive Glass and Composite Scaffolds for Bone Engineering: Advances and Challenges

Multifunctional scaffolds for bone tissue engineering applications are developed combining biodegradable polymers and bioactive inorganic materials, e.g. bioactive glasses. After a comprehensive summary of current research in the field of (nano) composite scaffolds, results of our recent research on bioactive glass and nanostructured glass-ceramic scaffolds coated and infiltrated with biopolymers will be discussed. The fabrication of such foam-like scaffolds is carried out by the simple but versatile foam replica technique which leads to the production of scaffolds exhibiting highly interconnected porosity (> 90% porosity). The partial crystallisation of the scaffold struts leads to scaffolds with suitable mechanical integrity. The coating and infiltration of scaffolds by biodegradable polymers containing functionalised nanoscale inorganic particles (or carbon nanotubes) increases the fracture resistance of scaffolds and induces the formation of nanostructured hydroxyapatite when immersed in simulated body fluid. Data on in-vitro characterisation of foams will be presented, emphasising on the effect of bioactive glass dissolution products on cellular behaviour. These effects are related to both osteogenesis and angiogenesis, as confirmed in in-vivo studies. The fabrication of novel silicate scaffolds doped with trace elements (e.g. Sr, Cu) and investigations on the effect of these elements on the scaffold biological performance have confirmed the enhancement of bioactivity of the materials in the context of bone tissue engineering. The development of novel multifunctional scaffolds based on inorganic foams containing carbon nanotubes or coated with polymer nanofibres will be also discussed. The fabrication procedure involves electrophoretic deposition which enables manipulation and control of the deposition of electrically charged nanoscaled particles and other nanostructures on foam surfaces. In this context, nanostructuring strategies for 3D porous scaffolds will be discussed, which are suggested to imitate the dimensions of proteins leading to enhanced cell attachment and proliferation. Areas of future research in the field of nanostructured bioactive glass based scaffolds for bone engineering will be finally addressed, including the emerging fields of tissue engineering therapeutics and interface tissue regeneration.