Bonelike apatite coatings nucleated on biodegradable polymers as a way to induce bone mineralization: current developments and future trends

Bone is one of the most wonderful examples of nature’s ability to engineer living materials by combining different organic/inorganic materials into complex shapes with a controlled specific function. This highly organized mineralized tissue consists of a hierarchy of collagen-based microstructures in association with cartilage and connective tissue. Therefore, when considering an ideal material to replace and mimic bone, synthetic calcium phosphates (currently designated as CaP’s or "apatites") can be an obvious answer, since they can replicate the structure and composition of bone mineral — hydroxylapatite (HA) — in a reproducible way.