Tuesday, July 19, 2005 |
Just What The Dodgers Need: Bone Glue
The scientists describe their results-- finding a sort of "glue" in human bone -- in the cover story of the August issue of the international scientific journal, Nature Materials. The article was published on-line on July 17. It describes how healthy bone resists fracture and how unhealthy bone fractures at the molecular level. Included with the article are the highest resolution images of bone ever published, which reveal the location of the adhesive or "glue" that holds together mineralized collagen fibrils (protein fibers) of bone.Unfortunately, it doesn't look like practical applications from this discovery will arrive soon enough to reduce J.D. Drew's DL stint any.The glue appears to contain "springs" that uncoil when the bone is stressed, helping the bone to absorb shock. When the stress is relaxed, they coil back to their original structure.
The possible implications for human health are important, explained Georg E. Fanter, a UCSB doctoral student in physics and first author of the report. "The findings may lead to therapy for bone fracture, or even to prevention," he said.
...
"Before this research, it was well known that the mechanical properties of bone depended on mineral particles and on collagen fibrils," said [physicist Paul K.] Hansma. "The picture of bone was that it consisted of these collagen fibrils coated with tiny mineral crystals only a few atoms thick. What we found is that there is a glue in bone that holds these mineralized collagen fibrils together, and this glue works along the same principles that our interdisciplinary research group found in abalone shells. This glue involves sacrificial bonds (with hidden length) that uncoil when the bone is stressed." That interdisciplinary research group included the research groups of [UCSB Professors Daniel E. Morse and Galen D. Stucky], as well as that of Herbert J. Waite.
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