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Building Artificial Bone
Late-Eight writes "Researchers from the National University of Singapore, have recently developed a new way to make artificial bone from mineralised collagen. For some time scientists have tried to make nanosized artificial bone materials using various methods, And have recently turned their attention to mineralised collagen, a nanoapatite/collagen composite. This material is highly biocompatible and has the nanostructure of artificial bone. It could be used in bone grafts and bone-tissue engineering, among other applications."
Get it? You insert dildos...
It's a double-ended-entendre and pun all in one!
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
Man, wake me up when something interesting comes along. Having a degree in this subject, I'll just point out that people have been fooling around with this stuff for years, and this article doesn't even represent a small advancement. Second, just because you mimic the structure of bone doesn't mean that the bone in your body gives a damn. Bone will grow over any "osteoconductive" material depending on the architecture of the scaffold that you make out of it. Surface nanostructures have been shown to effect bone cells in petri dishes but in terms of a full-on in vivo test, they are difficult to work with because they are so delicate, as I imagine this would be. Also, though I didn't look up the article itself, there didn't seem to be any in vivo testing. It just looked like a plain old characterization of a (not-so-)new material, which means it's pretty much worthless for any human use at least for the next two years.