The lecture is free to attend and open to all, but registration is required in advance – book your seat via Eventbrite (external link).
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Meet our new professors
Julian Jones, Professor of Biomaterials at Imperial College London
Glass has not conventionally been seen as a high tech material. However through understanding and manipulating the composition and arrangement of its atoms, today’s glasses can not only be scratch resistant for our smart phone screens, but also self-cleaning and thermo-regulating in order to cover our buildings.
In 1969, Larry Hench discovered a new glass, which was heralded as a saviour for people previously consigned to a life of pain by bone defects. Able to reverse the seemingly irreversible, Bioglass was the first material that could bond with bone and encourage regrowth by stimulating the body’s natural healing mechanisms. In the last ten years Bioglass has entered common orthopaedic treatments and is even the active ingredient in toothpaste that can treat sensitive teeth.
In his inaugural lecture Professor Julian Jones will discuss 4th generation ‘bouncy’ bio-glasses and their ability to restore damaged bone and cartilage. These hybrid glasses can be 3D printed into bespoke scaffolds that act as temporary templates to guide tissue repair while taking the loads and strains of the body. Certain hybrids can even heal themselves when cracked.
About the speaker
Julian Jones is a Professor of Biomaterials and Senior Tutor in the Department of Materials. Prior to this he held a Royal Academy of Engineering/ EPSRC Research Fellowship (awarded 2004), having completed his PhD in 2002. He joined the Department having obtained an MEng in Metallurgy and the Science of Materials from Oxford in 1999.
His research interests are in biomaterials for regenerative medicine. His work on process development of foamed gel-derived bioactive glass (the first 3D porous scaffold made from bioactive glass) and inorganic/ organic hybrids has produced tough and flexible bioactive scaffolds suitable for tissue engineering applications.
In 2014 he was awarded the Vittorio Gottardi Award from the International Congress on Glass (ICG) and in 2010 he was presented with the Robert L. Coble Award by the American Ceramics Society. He was elevated to Fellow of the American Ceramics Society in 2015.