Recently, Associate Researcher Xiyu Li and Professor Wei Li from State Key Laboratory of Oral Diseases, West China Hospital of Stomatology, Sichuan University, published their research work in Science Advances (IF: 13.116), entitled "In Vivo Changes of Nanoapatite Crystals During Bone Reconstruction and the Differences with Native Bone Apatite”. In this paper, terbium (Tb) doped uniform Hydroxyapatite (HA) nanocrystals were implanted into bone defects and compared with the native bone apatite. The results demonstrated the occurrence of gradual degradation and compositional and structural alterations of the implanted HA nanocrystals during bone reconstruction, and also revealed notable differences between HA nanocrystals and bone apatite crystals in their crystal size, distribution pattern and existence form in bone tissue. These findings can help to identify and rethink the function of synthetic apatite and bone apatite, which will benefit future design and application of biomimetic bone repair materials.

Science Advances is among the top multidisciplinary journals covering a broad spectrum of topics. More information about this study can be found at Science Advances (https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/11/eaay6484).