Rolla engineers design glass implant that can grow new bone (SLToday)
Sometimes medical advances don’t come from the medical field at all.
Engineers at the Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla have designed a super-strong glass implant with a scaffolding-like structure that is able to grow new bone.
“We have good material and engineering skills,” said lead researcher Len Rahaman, “and when you put those two together, it’s allowed us to use our skills to produce a bioactive glass that is strong enough to repair large structural bone defects.”
Bioactive means the material reacts with body fluids and converts into living bone, so it does not need to be removed.
In previous work, the engineers proved the glass implant they developed using robocasting – a computer-controlled technique to ensure a uniform structure – could withstand the weight and pressure experienced by long bones in the body like those in the arms and legs.
Their latest research using the skulls of rats, showed that the porous scaffolding design quickly bonded to the bone and promoted a significant amount of new bone growth within six weeks. The research was published last month in the journal Acta Bi...
