Bioactive glasses are an exciting group of materials used in regenerative medicine. They are designed to degrade in the body, releasing therapeutic ions which have been shown to provide a beneficial response in vivo. Traditionally used in bone regeneration, they are now being investigated for use in wound healing applications. A major challenge is to produce a material for wound healing that promotes cellular activity, e.g. angiogenesis, and that has a structure which is easy for clinicians to insert into wounds. Bioactive glasses are very flexible compositionally, allowing metal oxides to be incorporated into the bioactive glass structure, providing a range of potentially valuable therapeutic properties for wound healing.

When wounds fail to heal following the usual pathways, they are at risk of becoming chronic and can place a significant burden on the patient and on the healthcare system. Chronic wounds are caused by a number of different routes, however foot ulcers in diabetic patients are some of the most common. Improving angiogenesis and the supply of nutrients to the wound bed should improve healing. Copper is known to stimulate vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression in several cell types (such as in endothelial cells and in human bone marrow stromal cells) and promote angiogenesis. In this thesis, copper ions were incorporated into a sol-gel derived bioactive glass structure and were investigated for their ability to stimulate VEGF production by human dermal fibroblasts.

The bioactive glass compositions were fabricated by electrospinning which produced unique, copper containing, 3D cotton-wool-like structures. This 3D fibrous scaffold mimics the appearance of the extracellular matrix (ECM) and is ideal for packing into large defects such as wounds. The 3D scaffold structure was obtained through the control over relevant electrospinning and material properties which were identified through experimentation outlined in this thesis.