Colloids and bone

COLL 418

Paul Hansma, Jackie Cutroni, and Georg Fantner. Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106
Colloids of nanoscale mineral particles from bone help reveal the interactions between mineral particles and the organic matrix in bone. Boiling bone in a solution of calcium phosphate creates a colloidal suspension of mineral particles. Other solutions can also free mineral particles from the organic matrix of bone. The very creation of the colloid reveals important clues about the interactions that couple the organic matrix of bone to the mineral particles. Further, the colloids provide a system for studying interactions of molecules with bone mineral particles with rapid solvent access to large surface areas.