Eindhoven: 3D images of bone formation promise new ways to make stronger materials

Research lead

Researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology have made the first high-resolution images of the earliest stages of bone formation, using the world’s most advanced electron microscope to make three-dimensional images of the nanoparticles at the heart of the process.

The results provide improved understanding of bone, tooth and shell formation. For industrial applications, they promise better materials and processes based on nature itself.

The researchers, led by Nico Sommerdijk, imaged small clusters with a cross section of 0.7 nm in a solution of calcium carbonate, the basic material of which shells are made. They showed for the first time that these clusters, each consisting of only about ten ions, are the beginning of the growth process through which the crystalline biomineral is ultimately formed.

The researchers now hope to show that the mechanism they have identified also applies to the formation of other crystalline biominerals, and perhaps even to other, inorganic, materials.

This is important for research into bone growth and bone-replacement materials. In addition it could be used in nanotechnology, to allow the growth of nanoparticles to be controlled in the same way as seems to be the case in nature: through subtle interactions between organic and inorganic materials.

Biomineralisation is the formation of inorganic materials in a biological environment, as, for example, in bones, teeth and shells. The formation of the mineral is controlled with great precision by specialised organic biomolecules such as sugars and proteins. Although the underlying mechanisms have already been studied for a long time, the process is still not fully understood.