From the perspective of materials science, organisms and most of their tissues can be regarded as composite materials composed of various matrix materials. Specifically, inorganic-organic nanocomposites are most common in organisms, such as bones and teeth, and consist of hydroxyapatite nanocrystals and organic polymer matrix. According to modern advanced science and technology, people have prepared nano-bio-composites through biomimetic mineralization, and obtained better mechanical properties than conventional materials.

According to the principle of biomineralization, American scientists discovered an amphiphilic peptide molecule, one end of which is hydrophilic arginine-glycine-aspartic acid (RGD), and the other end contains phosphorylated amino acid residues. This hydrophilic RGD sequence is beneficial to the adhesion between materials and cells, and phosphorylated amino acid residues can interact with calcium ions. These amphiphilic peptide molecules can be assembled into nanofibers to promote biomineralization and make them become templates to guide the crystal growth of hydroxyapatite (HA). This amphiphilic nanofiber solution can form a gel similar to the collagen fiber matrix of bone, so this research and development can inject the gel into bone defects as a matrix for generating new bone tissue. The results show that the gel is placed in the solution containing acid and phosphate ions, and after 20 minutes, the system biomimetically mineralizes, and HA crystals grow along the fibers and transform into hydroxyapatite-peptide complexes. Nanocomposites are as hard as real bones.

Nano-hydroxyapatite-collagen composite developed in Tsinghua University, China, imitates inorganic and organic components in natural bone matrix in composition, and its nano-scale structure is similar to natural bone matrix. The three-dimensional scaffold formed by porous nano-hydroxyapatite-collagen composite provides osteoblasts with a microenvironment similar to that in vivo. So cells can grow well on this scaffold and secrete bone matrix. In vitro and animal experiments show that this hydroxyapatite-collagen composite is a good nano-material for bamboo repair.