TC04 aims to promote global visibility of biomedical glasses and stimulate collaborations between academics and industry. Examples are outreach projects (public and end user engagement), input into international standards, liaising with professional bodies, conference organisation and scientific publications and road mapping. We have recently launched a YouTube Channel and a scientific journal BIOMEDICAL GLASSES.
Activities and planned actions
Delia S. Brauer (Jena, Germany) has taken over responsibilities as TC04 Chair from Julian Jones, and Qiang Fu (Corning, US) is the successor of Wolfram Höland as Vice-Chair.
1. Publications
- TC04 chair Delia Brauer has been invited to edit a book on Phosphate and Borate Bioactive Glasses, to be published by the Royal Society of Chemistry; several TC04 members have been invited to contribute chapters.
- A Special Issue “50 Years of Bioactive Glasses” has been now published in the journal Biomedical Glasses; guest editors include TC04 members Aldo Boccaccini and Julian Jones. We are happy to report that more than 15 papers have been submitted to this special collection, many of them by TC04 members. All papers are published in “Open Access” mode and can be downloaded free of charge from the journal webpage.
- TC04 members Amy Nommeots-Nomm, Delia Brauer, Leena Hupa and Dana Rohanová have published a review paper on acellular immersion studies on bioactive glasses, published in a Special Issue “Women in Glass” in the International Journal of Applied Glass Science. The paper is free to download.
- The 3rd edition of TC04 member Wolfram Höland’s well-known text book on Glass-Ceramic Technology has been published by Wiley.
- Former TC04 Chair Julian Jones has written an article on Glass for Regenerative Medicine, discussing the use of glass in healing injuries, published in the April 2019 issue (page 44) of Glass International.
- Wolfram Höland and new TC04 member Markus Rampf have submitted a book chapter “Glass-ceramics for dental restorations” to be included in: K. Pawelec (ed.), “Bone repair biomaterials: Regeneration and clinical aspects” (2nd ed.), Elsevier (anticipated date of publication: January 2019).
- Chengtie Wu has edited a special issue on Tissue Therapy & Regeneration in Applied Materials Today, which has been completed in 2018.
- Aldo Boccaccini, Julian Jones, Mohammed Rahaman and Enrica Vernè were guest editors, many TC04 members contributed as authors.
- David Greenspan is planning to write a biography on Prof. Larry Hench.
- Last but not least: Articles are published regularly in our scientific open access journal Biomedical Glasses (editor-in-chief: Aldo Boccaccini; TC04 members Julian Jones, Delia Brauer, Chengtie Wu, Jonathan Massera and Mohamed Rahaman are associate editors, and several other TC04 members are on the editorial board).
2. Round Robin Studies
After several years of hard work by many TC04 members, the result of our Round Robin bioactivity study, which was carried out over 9 institutions and 7 countries, is available online. The aim of the study was to design a simple and reliable protocol which researchers can use to evaluate the ability of their bioactive glasses, or variants, to precipitate calcium-phosphate crystals such as apatite on their surface. By adhereing to the same protocol, comparisons between different glasses are possible.
Building on the success of the SBF round robin study and publication, we feel it is timely to do a round robin study on cellular response. The test will include a protocol based on the ISO standard (extracts) and propose a method for cell culture studies on bioactive glasses.
3. Awards
Aldo Boccaccini and Julian Jones have been elected Fellows of the Society of Glass Technology. Congratulations!
Robert Hill was the 2020 recipient of the Varshneya Glass Technology Lecture, awarded by the ACerS Glass & Optical Materials Division. He gave his talk at the ICG Congress in Boston, MA, USA.
Congratulations to Wolfram Höland on being the 2018 awardee of the ACerS GOMD Stookey Lecture of Discovery Award. He gave his talk at the 2018 GOMD Meeting in San Antonio, Texas, USA.
4. Interfacing with ACerS
Steve Jung and Julian Jones are Chair and Co-Chair, respectively, of a new Bioceramics Division of the American Ceramics Society; many TC04 members have joined the division. TC04 and the Bioceramics Division are working together on organising sessions at the MS&T annual meeting and the ICG Congress 2019.
5. Conferences:
- TC04 members Aldo Boccaccini, Enrica Vernè and Jonathan Massera organise a Bioactive Glasses session at the 2020 BioMaH conference held in Rome, Italy.
- TC04 members Delia Brauer and Anthony Macon organise the Glasses in Healthcare/Special Glasses session at the 2020 joint meeting of the French and German Glass Societies (USTV-DGG), held in Orléans, France.
- Delia Brauer is programme chair (together with Jessica Rimsza, Sandia National Lab) of the 2020 ACerS Glass & Optical Materials Division 2020 Annual Meeting held in New Orleans, LA, USA.
- Aldo Boccaccini and Delia Brauer are Special Session organisers at the Annual Conference of the European Society for Biomaterials (ESB) held in Dresden, Germany, in 2019. Julian Jones is keynote speaker.
- A Glasses for Healthcare session is held at the annual meeting of the Society of Glass Technology, Cambridge, UK, in 2019. TC04 members Aldo Boccaccini and Delia Brauer are invited speakers.
- A Special Symposium on glasses for healthcare applications was held in honour of Prof. Delbert E. Day at the 2019 ACerS GFMAT-2/Bio-4 conference held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was organised by TC04 members Richard Brow and Mohamed Rahaman; TC04 members Leena Hupa, Delia Brauer, Steve Jung, Qiang Fu, Wolfram Höland and Ifty Ahmed were invited speakers.
- Delia Brauer, Qiang Fu and Julian Jones organised the Glasses in Healthcare session at the ICG Congress 2019 in Boston. TC04 members Dave Greenspan and Amy Nommeots-Nomm were invited speakers.
- TC04 members were organising a Glasses in Healthcare session at the joint DGG (Germany) and USTV (France) Conference held in Nuremberg, Germany, in 2019. Aldo Boccaccini was a member of the local organising committee and main session organiser, Delia Brauer and Markus Rampf (new TC04 member) were co-organisers.
- Robert Hill and Wolfram Höland were invited speakers at the 2018 ICG Annual Meeting in Yokohama, Japan.
- Julian Jones gave a plenary presentation at Bioceramics 30 in Nagoya, Japan, 2018, and several invited lectures in 2018, e.g. at MS&T in Columbus, Ohio, at the International Sol-Gel Society Summer School in Alghero, Italy and at the 7th International Congress on Ceramics at Iguacu Falls, Brazil.
- Delia Brauer organised a special session on bioactive glasses at the 2018 ICG Summer School in Montpellier, France. Delia Brauer, Robert Hill, Leena Hupa and Aldo Boccaccini gave lectures.
- A Glasses in Healthcare symposium organised by Delia Brauer, Ashutosh Goel and Julian Jones was held at the 2018 GOMD in San Antonio, TX. Alastair Cormack and Steve Jung were invited speakers, Ifty Ahmed and Qiang Fu presented.
- Delia Brauer and Aldo Boccaccini organised a Glasses in Healthcare session at the 2018 annual conference of the German Society of Glass Technology (DGG) held in Bayreuth, Germany. Enrica Vernè was keynote speaker, Dana Rohanová presented.
6. Exchange Projects & Funding
Christ Arts and Leena Hupa are collaborating on bioactive glass retrievals from clinical patients.
Jérémy Soulié has successfully obtained funding for a bilateral exchange project between his group at CIRIMAT, Toulouse, France, and the group of Delia Brauer, Jena, Germany. This exchange will take place in 2020 and will focus on research on pyrophosphate glasses.
TC04 acknowledges a grant from ICG to fund student exchange projects between TC04 member groups. Jonathan Massera, Enrica Vernè, Aldo Boccaccini, Dana Rohanová, Robert Hill and Delia Brauer are participating in bilateral students research exchanges. Six students were given the opportunity to gain research experience in a research lab abroad, and projects included 3D printing of scaffolds, solid-state NMR characterisation of glasses or electrospinning of bioactive glass-containing composite fibres.
A joint collaborative research project between Profs. Delia Brauer and Aldo Boccaccini with participation of Fraunhofer Institute Halle has been approved for funding by the German Science Foundation (DFG). The project will investigate crystallisation phenomena in melt derived and sol-gel bioactive glasses by advanced in situ methods. Project duration is 3 years and has started in January 2018.
7. TC04 Annual Meeting
The TC04 annual meeting 2020 will be held as part of the ACerS GOMD Meeting in New Orleans, LA, USA.
The TC04 annual meeting 2019 was held as part of the ICG Congress 2019 in Boston, MA, USA, in June 2019. Delia Brauer, Qiang Fu, Richard Brow, Alexis Clare, Delbert Day, Dave Greenspan, Robert Hill, Wolfram Höland, Leena Hupa, Julian Jones, Will Lepry, Anthony Macon, Jonathan Massera and Amy Nommeots-Nomm attended.
In addition, a special TC04 dinner was held, funded by an ICG award for the best TC website.
The TC04 annual meeting 2018 was held as part of the Physics of Non-Crystalline Solids conference in Saint-Malo, France, in July 2018. Delia Brauer, Robert Hill, Alastair Cormack, Jamieson Christie, Jonathan Massera and Xiaojing Chen (new TC04 member) attended. A follow-up meeting was held at MS&T in Columbus, Ohio, US, and chaired by Qiang Fu. Julian Jones, Steve Jung, Ashutosh Goel, Alastair Cormack and Richard Brow (new TC04 member) attended.
Outreach
May 2016 in the Daily Mail, UK
Julian Jones’s bouncing glass has appeared in the Daily mail: Silicon implant ‘helps worn knees to regrow’ – and could spare thousands of patients from surgery
April 2016 in the Daily Mail, UK, and Bild, Germany
Robert Hill’s toothpaste containing bioactive glass had much media attention: The £5 toothpaste that can repair holes in your teeth: Product binds to the teeth and fills in any decay before releasing calcium and fluoride and Toothpaste that repairs your teeth while you sleep (in German).
Committee Members
Ahmed, Ifty
Ars, Chris
Boccaccini, Aldo
Brauer, Delia Committee Position: Chair
Brow, Richard
Chen, Xiaojing
Christie, Jamieson
Clare, Alexis
Cormack, Alastair
Day, Delbert
Fu, Qiang
Goel, Ashutosh (Prof)
Greenspan, David
Hill, Robert
Holand, Wolfram
Hoppe, Alexander
Hupa, Leena
Jones, Julian (Prof)
Jung, Steve
Kapoor, Saurabh
Lepry, William
Macon, Anthony
Massera, Jonathan
Nommeots-Nomm, Amy
Rampf, Markus
Rohanova, Dana
Soulié, Jérémy
Verne, Enrica
Vitale-Brovorone, Chiara
Wren, Anthony
Committee Contact Details
TC04: Bioglasses
Otto Schott Institute of Materials Research (OSIM), Fraunhoferstr. 6, 07743 Jena,
Germany