Crossing the shell-bone divide

Living systems produce mineral structures such as shells or skeletons. Shells are usually composed of calcium carbonate and bones are made of calcium phosphate. Biomineral scientists tend to work on shells or bones. This project will use a technique that identifies the directions of the crystals within shells and apply it to bone. This will help our understanding of healthy and diseased bone and also assess the success of current bone disease therapies. This project will also pursue the interesting observation that calcium carbonate stimulates bone cells to produce bone. By understanding which aspects of the calcium carbonate structure are required to stimulate bone production, effective bone regenerative implants can be designed.

In biomineralization, there is a major schism between vertebrates that commandeer calcium phosphate in the internal skeleton and invertebrates that recruit calcium carbonate to produce external structures such as shells. As a consequence of this dichotomy the study of biominerals has fallen into two distinct research areas concentrating on vertebrate bone or invertebrate shell structures. The drawback is that knowledge and analytical advances from these individual areas are very slow to pervade from one side of the divide to the other.
The proposal involves Dr Cusack, a senior lecturer in Geographical & Earth Sciences and expert in invertebrate biominerals, working with a bone expert (Professor Fraser) to apply electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) to bone in a proof-of-concept study to assess the feasibility of using EBSD to understand bone disease and to provide quantitative assessment of treatments. In addition, Dr Cusack will learn about quantifying the in vitro osteogenic response and determine the role of structure and crystallography in the osteoinductive properties of calcium carbonate.