Welcome to the Glass Age

45 Like many pharmaceuticals, vaccines contain sensitive molecules that must be kept in containers which preserve them and do not interact with their contents. Corrosion-resistant borosilicate glasses are the material of choice for COVID-19 vaccine vials, and chemical strengthening can ensure minimal loss of their valuable cargo. Increasing vial production without reducing quality or quality control was one of the many challenges during the early stages of the pandemic. Another serious medical condition that afflicts a large proportion of the global population is diabetes. While the glucose level in the blood can be regulated through insulin injection, diabetic patients live with other effects of their condition, such as inhibited wound healing. Skin wounds take longer to heal for diabetic patients, often not healing at all. Glasses can help here, too, as we will see below. Bioglasses Bioglasses are not corrosion resistant, but rather they are designed to undergo safe dissolution inside the human body, assisting with the body’s natural repair mechanisms. Chronic wounds are those that do not heal under conventional treatment, and they are a serious problem as open wounds are prone to infection. Chronic wounds are more common in diabetic patients, due to disruption of the multi-stage wound healing cascade, impaired blood vessel development in the wound for example. If infection takes hold, it can ultimately lead to amputation. A medical device called Mirragen ® (ETS Wound Care, US) has been shown to heal chronic wounds in diabetic patients [1], including venous ulcers with yeast infections that had not healed during many months of conventional treatment. Consisting of spun borate-based glass fibres (Figure 3.2), Mirragen ® has the appearance and flexibility of white cotton candy. The bundles of fibres are inserted into the wound before a more conventional barrier dressing is applied on top. The fibres biodegrade in a matter of days, but during that time they provide their dissolution products of borate and calcium ions to the wound bed. Figure 3.2. Mirragen ® cotton-like glass for healing chronic wounds. Source: ETS Wound Care, MO, USA.