Bioactive Glasses: Sprouting Angiogenesis in Tissue Engineering

The biggest strategic challenge for tissue engineering is the development of efficient vascularized networks in engineered tissues and organs. Bioactive glasses (BGs) are potent biomaterials for inducing angiogenesis in hard and soft tissue engineering applications. Because tissue-healing processes strongly depend on angiogenesis, recent interest in BGs has increased dramatically. BGs with improved angiogenetic properties can be developed by adding a range of metallic ions (e.g., Cu2+, Co2+) into their structure, but further development of BGs with improved angiogenic activity is required, and many crucial questions remain to be answered. We introduce here the salient features, the hurdles that must be overcome, and the hopes and constraints for the development of this approach.