Innovative Apatite/Bioactive Glass-based materials for biomedical applications

Musculoskeletal-related problems are nowadays one of the main concerns in healthcare, due to tumors, traumatology, osteoporosis and others pathologies, especially considering ageing populations. These diseases and induced defects affect millions of people worldwide. An important scientific effort was dedicated, in the past decades, to the development of bonegrafts materials as alternatives to allo- and autografts, due to the drawbacks associated with the employment of the latter ones (as for instance, transmission complications as well as immunological rejection and morbidity). Scientific research focused on synthetic bone graft displaying suitable properties is an actual hot topic. In this context, calcium phosphates (in particular hydroxyapatite) and bioactive glasses, recently gained much attention due to their characteristics as promising materials for the treatment of non-self-healing bone defects. Indeed, they display biocompatibility, good bioactivity and non-toxicity. Despite these, clinical application of hydroxyapatite- and bioactive glass-derived materials is still limited, and further development of such materials is needed. The main aim of this work is then to contribute to solve some of the drawbacks displayed by these classes of materials (related to their composition, synthesis and manufacturing), to provide possible useful insights about howto limit/overcome them. In the present thesis, beyond the state of the art, it was attempted to tackle various problems related to the development of innovative materials for hard tissue engineering.