Biology Fibrous Composites Development Beyond Cell Membrane Antho… 9780521410519

Biology of Fibrous CompositesDevelopment beyond the Cell Membrane\nAuthor(s): Anthony Charles Neville\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom\nImprint: Cambridge University Press\nISBN-13: 9780521410519, 978-0521410519\nSynopsis\nThis book, by a leading thinker with 30 years experience in the field, is the first devoted to fibrous composites in biology. It tackles a major unsolved problem in developmental biology - how does chemistry create architecture outside cells? Fibrous composites occur in all skeletal systems including plant cell walls, insect cuticles, moth eggshells, bone and cornea. They function like man-made fibreglass, with fibres set in a matrix. The fibrous molecules are long, extracellular and water-insoluble and to be effective they must be orientated strategically. The underlying hypothesis of this book is that the fibres are orientated by self-assembly just outside the cells during a mobile liquid crystalline phase prior to stabiliz.