The term regeneration may seem like science fiction to some, but researchers at the University of North Texas are hoping their material research of bioactive glass can help other research studies in using glass to regenerate tissues, fibers and load-bearing bones.

DRC/Barron Ludlum

University of North Texas professor Jincheng Du holds a piece of bioactive glass on Wednesday. He will conduct a three-year project funded by the National Science Foundation to study the applications of bioactive glasses, which can bond to bone and soft tissue, allowing them to restore and repair the bone.

View larger More photos Photo store

Bioactive glass is being used in facial implantations, middle-ear implants and dentistry, but the applications are limited because little is known about the complex structure of bioactive glass, said Jincheng Du, professor of materials science and engineering at UNT.

“We have an aging population and increasing number of patients that need bone restoration and treatment due to disease or trauma,” Du said. “Success of the project will lead to a more rational design of bioactive glasses for various applications.”

For example, applications involving load-bearing weight, such as a hip or a knee or other joint replacements, cannot be fully reproduced with bioactive glass, he said.

To further understand the material composition of bioactive glass and the possibility of other glass applications, Du and his research team have started a three-year project, funded by a $220,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, to explore those possibilities.

The study of bioactive glass has become more fractured as privately funded labs shift their focus on other research, but it’s important to study the material of bioactive glass and develop more bioactive glass applications, according to information from the National Science Foundation.

“The research has been going on a long time, but people don’t know much about the structure,” Du said. “The structure is so complicated.”

Bioactive glass was developed to help soldiers with bone injuries during the Vietnam War by professor Larry Hench from the University of Florida.

Hench used silica, or glass, combined with other ingredients such as powdered calcium to fuse shattered bone fragments. The body thinks the glass, loaded with calcium, is bone material, which stimulates new bone material between the fractures.

Before there was bioactive glass, soldiers would often die from severe bone injuries, but the development of bioactive glass helped save many who would otherwise not make it, Du said.

UNT researchers will melt bioactive glass at a high temperature, or more than 24,000 degrees Fahrenheit, to see the faces of the glass, see the composition of the material and the face separation through computer lab simulations, Du said.

The bioactive glasses will be dissolved in various fluids to better design bioactive glass to have more futuristic applications including regenerating fiber and tissue in the body, Du said.

“The glass experiment is so valuable, there’s no single experiment that can determine the structure uniquely, and that’s why simulation comes into play,” Du said.

By studying the properties of bioactive glass, there’s an ability to feed the information into other experiments and develop new materials, said Leopold Kokou, a UNT doctoral student and research assistant on the project.

To simulate the lab experience through computer simulation, researchers will run the experiments and categorize it using mathematics in a fraction of the time it would take to run a laboratory study, Kokou said.

But there are some challenges, such as making sure potential computer models are reliable and overcoming difficulty in measuring time and mass, he said.

The research study also will use neutron and X-ray diffraction equipment at Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, Ill., to study the glass, Du said.

By understanding how the material dissolves in a particular environment, researchers will be able to test more applications of bioactive glass and develop applications for faster drug delivery and tissue engineering and learn how to build a structure to withstand environments, Du said.

“This experiment is very important to our research and to the final structure of bioactive glass,” he said.

CANDACE CARLISLE can be reached at 940-566-6889. Her e-mail address is ccarlisle@dentonrc.com .