Discovery of new crystallization pathways in forming biominerals

非技术描述当原子以规则的几何形状排列自己时，就形成了完美的晶体。这种结晶在自然界中随时随地发生，产生宝石、矿物和岩石，但它也与工业有关，并在工业中广泛存在，例如制造电子产品的半导体晶体，或生产结晶化学品、药品或食品。因此，认识结晶通过提高基础知识和应用材料生产，促进科学进步，造福社会。然而，问题是，在所有这些自然和合成系统中，结晶发生得太快，在高温和高压下，使得很难或不可能在发生时观察到结晶。研究人员有更好的机会通过观察生物矿物中的结晶来了解结晶，比如珊瑚骨骼和贝壳，在这些矿物中，晶体在室温、环境压力下生长，而且非常非常慢，需要一天左右的时间才能结晶。这项研究将包括有才华的本科生，他们是科学和学术界中代表性不足的少数群体的成员，并让他们发表同行评议的期刊文章，就像这些研究人员之前所做的那样。技术描述观察结晶过程揭示了是否存在瞬时前驱物相，这些前驱物相可以是晶态或非晶态矿物。初步的、未公布的、未经证实的数据表明，生物矿物形成的瞬时前体有两种：晶态和非晶态。以前只在一种生物矿物浮游有孔虫中观察到过一次瞬时晶相，而在海胆的针刺和棘突、软体贝壳和珊瑚骨骼中已经广泛而反复地观察到了瞬时无定形相。首席研究员和她的团队将努力探索许多不同生物矿物中瞬时晶体前体的存在，方法是分析他们已有的数据和即将获得的关于新的、未探索的生物矿物的新数据：腕足类和海底有孔虫。他们将开发软件来构建能量图，确定所有瞬变和稳定相的结晶率，然后使用该软件分析新旧数据。他们将开发机器学习和主成分分析，在新旧数据中发现新的、未知的矿物相。即使他们发现大多数生物矿物中不存在瞬时晶相，但新能源景观、新生物矿物及其形成机制，以及通过机器学习在新旧数据中识别的潜在新相，将使这项研究产生多个有趣的发现，同时雇用和培训有才华的未被充分代表的本科生。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Non-technical description Perfect crystals are formed when atoms order themselves in a regular geometry. This crystallization happens all the time in nature, resulting in gemstones, minerals, and rocks, but it is also relevant to and widespread in industry, for example to make semiconductor crystals for electronics, or to produce crystalline chemicals, pharmaceuticals, or food products. Understanding crystallization, therefore, promotes the progress of science and benefits society by improving fundamental knowledge and applied materials production. The problem, however, is that crystallization in all these natural and synthetic systems happens too fast, at high temperature, and at high pressure, making it difficult or impossible to observe crystallization as it happens. Researchers have a better chance to understand crystallization by observing it in biominerals, such as coral skeletons and seashells, where crystals grow at room temperature, ambient pressure, and very, very slowly, taking a day or so to crystallize. This research will involve talented undergraduate students who are members of underrepresented minorities in science and academia, and make them publish peer-reviewed journal articles, as previously done by these researchers. Technical descriptionObserving crystallization as it happens reveals the presence or absence of transient precursor phases, which can be crystalline or amorphous minerals. Preliminary, unpublished, unconfirmed data suggest that there are two kinds of transient precursors to biomineral formation: crystalline and amorphous. Transient crystalline phases have only been observed once before in only one biomineral, planktonic foraminifera, whereas transient amorphous phases have been observed extensively and repeatedly sea urchin spicules and spines, in mollusk shells, and in coral skeletons. The principal investigator and her group will strive explore the existence of transient crystalline precursors in many different biominerals, by analyzing data they already have and new data, to be acquired on new, unexplored biominerals: brachiopods and benthic foraminifera. They will develop software to build the energy landscapes that determine crystallization rates for all transient and stable phases, then use this software to analyze data new and old. They will develop machine learning and principal component analysis to find new, unknown mineral phases in new and old data. Even if they discover that transient crystalline phases do not exist in most biominerals, the new energy landscapes, the new biominerals and their formation mechanisms, and the potential new phases identified by machine learning in new and old data will make this research produce multiple interesting discoveries, while employing and training talented underrepresented undergraduate students.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.