Glass and Medicine: The Larry Hench Story

The terms “bioactive glass,” “bioactive ceramic,” “bioactive polymer,” and “bioactive metal” are common in the lexicon of the biomaterials scientist today. Each term is inherently understood by the biomaterials and medical device industry. Those terms and their definitions are utilized as positive selling points for very many medical devices. However, merely forty years ago, the term “bioactive” as applied to any material to be implanted in the human body was still something of a laboratory curiosity. It was the invention of one particular glass composition and the discovery over time of how that material behaved that created an entirely new approach with respect to how any material could and should interact with the human body. The invention, of course, by Larry L. Hench helped to revolutionize the field of implantable biomaterials and created the branch of materials known as bioactive materials. This is the brief story of Larry Hench and Bioglass ® .