Student success in London

Prof. Boccaccini und Pippa Newby

Pippa Newby has successfully passed the oral defense of her PhD thesis in the field of “Multifunctional Bioglass®-based composite scaffolds with therapeutic ion release capability”. Pippa was based at the Department of Materials, Imperial College London, the thesis supervisors were Prof. A. R. Boccaccini and Prof. E. Saiz. The project investigated the introduction of therapeutic metal ions, such as silver, into bioactive glass-ceramic scaffolds produced using the foam replication technique. A molten salt ion exchange method was developed for ion incorporation in the silicate network. In addition, to improve the mechanical properties of the scaffolds, polymer coatings based on gelatin were investigated. Several publications were generated from Pippa’s thesis, for example:

[1] El-Gendy R; Yang XB; Newby PJ; Boccaccini AR; Kirkham J (2013) Osteogenic differentiation of human dental pulp stromal cells on 45S5 Bioglass® based scaffolds in vitro and in vivo. Tissue Eng Part A, 19 (5-6), pp. 707-715.
[2] Newby PJ; El-Gendy R; Kirkham J; Yang XB; Thompson ID; Boccaccini AR (2011) Ag-doped 45S5 Bioglass (R)-based bone scaffolds by molten salt ion exchange: processing and characterisation. J MATER SCI-MATER MED, 22 (3), pp. 557-569(Click image to enlarge)