Visit from Manchester, UK
Dr Jonny Blaker, lecturer at the School of Materials, University of Manchester, UK, visited our Institute on 18-20 November. Dr. Blaker was the first PhD student with Prof. Aldo R. Boccaccini at Imperial College London, and they pioneered the development of biodegradable polymer foam scaffolds reinforced by bioactive glass particles, their first joint paper was published in 2003 [1]. Dr. Blaker is also one of the co-authors of a comprehensive review paper on biopolymer-inorganic phase composites for bone tissue engineering, published in 2006 [2] that has attracted more than 1000 citations. Prof. Boccaccini and Dr Blaker have continued collaborations over the years and they are currently planning joint research projects in the field of functionalised bioactive materials for tissue engineering.
[1] Blaker, J. J., Gough, J. E., Maquet, V., Notingher, I., Boccaccini, A. R., In vitro Evaluation of Novel Bioactive Composites Based on Bioglass®-filled Polylactide Foams for Bone Tissue Engineering Scaffolds, J. Biomed. Mater. Res. 67A (2003) 1401-1411.
[2] Rezwan, K., Chen, Q. Z., Blaker, J. J., Boccaccini, A. R., Biodegradable and bioactive porous polymer/inorganic composite scaffolds for bone tissue engineering, Biomaterials 27 (2006) 3413-3431. (Click image to enlarge)