With the march of the “baby boomers” into retirement and the medical problems of aging, innovations that ameliorate fractured bones likely will be life-and limb-saving. Addressing this concern, bioengineers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital have discovered that stem cells, growing in a “clay” of synthetic silicate nanoplatelets can be induced to become bone cells.  In effect, this clay provides the scaffold for cell growth and differentiation. MORE