Partial Support to Short-Course on Medical Mineralogy and Geochemistry

医学矿物学和地球化学涵盖了地质材料与人体之间的相互作用，包括人体内的正常和病理矿化，以及组织工程，需要设计生物相容性，生物活性材料，包括陶瓷和玻璃，用于植入物表面的骨和牙齿等组织的生成。这个令人兴奋的、新兴的、跨学科的领域汇集了生物化学、地球化学、矿物学和医学科学的各个方面。在地球近地表地球化学环境的矿物-有机界面上运作的基本物理化学机制，同样也在人体中运作。是时候认识到促进地球化学家和生物医学科学家之间的密集科学合作的巨大潜在影响了。地球化学家和矿物学家对矿物和玻璃的稳定性、矿物对生物分子和无机物种的反应性、矿物沉淀/溶解动力学和矿物-山梨酸相互作用的了解，以及他们在研究复杂的多组分、多相、多尺度系统方面的训练，使他们能够从分子和纳米尺度到宏观尺度，为这一领域做出贡献。我们建议组织一个关于医学矿物学和地球化学的短期课程和研讨会，在美国矿物学学会和地球化学学会出版的矿物学和地球化学系列评论中编辑一卷，在“元素”杂志上编辑一个关于这个主题的特刊，创建一个学术界、政府和工业界各级感兴趣的研究人员的电子邮件列表，包括本科生、研究生和博士后。并使更大的科学界和公众意识到医学矿物学和地球化学这一新兴领域的出现及其巨大的意义。

Medical mineralogy and geochemistry encompasses interactions between geomaterials and the human body including the normal and pathological mineralization within the human body, and tissue engineering which requires the design of biocompatible, bioactive materials including ceramics and glasses for use as implants in the generation of tissues such as bone and teeth at the implant surfaces. This exciting, emergent, interdisciplinary field brings together aspects of biochemistry, geochemistry, mineralogy, and the medical sciences. The same fundamental physico-chemical mechanisms that operate at mineral-organic interfaces in the earth's near-surface geochemical environment also operate within the human body. It is time to recognize the tremendous potential impact in promoting intensive scientific collaboration between geochemists and biomedical scientists. Geochemists and mineralogists are uniquely equipped to contribute insight to this field from the molecular and nanoscale to the macroscopic scale because of their knowledge of mineral and glass stability, mineral reactivity towards biological molecules and inorganic species, mineral precipitation/dissolution kinetics and mineral-sorbate interactions, as well as their training in studying complex multi-component, multi-phase, multi-scale systems.We propose to organize a short-course and workshop on Medical Mineralogy and Geochemistry, edit a volume in the Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry Series published by the Mineralogical Society of America and the Geochemical Society, edit a special issue of the Magazine "Elements" on this subject, create an email list of interested researchers in academia, government and industry at all levels including undergraduate and graduate students and post-doctoral associates, and bring about an awareness among the greater scientific community and the general public of the emergence and tremendous significance of the emergent field of Medical Mineralogy and Geochemistry.