paleonet Biomineralisation in Fish Bones and Teeth

["Gilles Cuny" <gilles@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear colleagues,

Biomineralisation in Fish Bones and Teeth: from Microscopy to
Design of Materials. Organizers: Anne Kemp and Gilles Cuny
(University of Queensland and Geological Museum, University
of Copenhagen).


We plan to run a symposium on fish biomineralisation
emphasising new analytical techniques like high resolution tem
and molecular biology, placing the new work in the context of
results from more conventional analyses such as light and
electron microscopy and biochemistry (see below). This
symposium is part of a major project to analyse fish
biomineralisation in more detail, and explore commercial
applications of the structures and processes discovered.

If you are interested in participating in a symposium on
this topic, either as part of the Fisheries Biology Congress in
Newfoundland in 2006, or as a separate symposium to be held
in Europe in 2008, please indicate your interest by responding to
this e-mail.

Expressions of interest in the 2006 congress are needed
by January 31st 2005. Please answer to Gilles at
gilles@savik.geomus.ku.dk and/or to Anne at
a.kemp@mailbox.uq.edu.au

Please circulate this e-mail to anyone who might be
interested. We particularly welcome students and postdocs
contributions.


Biomineralisation in Fish Bones and Teeth: from
Microscopy to Design of Materials. Organizers: Anne
Kemp and Gilles Cuny (University of Queensland and
Geological Museum, University of Copenhagen).

The symposium will discuss the ultrastructure, genetics,
development, and processes of biomineralisation of the hard
tissues of fish, including bone, enamel, enameloid, dentine,
calcified cartilage and scale tissues. That the fine structure of fish
teeth shows an enormous diversity has been known since the
early studies of Owen in the nineteenth century, but little of this
diversity has been studied with modern techniques of
microscopy. Equally, development displays considerable
variability, with enamel being formed by endodermally derived
tissues in several fish groups, and enameloid from endoderm and
mesoderm. The processes involved in biomineralisation are
known in part in some mammals, but little understood in fish.
Studies on immunodetection of the proteins involved in the
mineralization processes of hard tissues in fish are not very
widely used, and the genes coding for these proteins not always
identified. Specific adaptations of the ultrastructure of fish
dentitions, in relation to stress induced during use of the teeth,
have implications for biomaterials research and for the design of
more effective machinery for industrial processes. Improved
understanding of all of these aspects of fish hard tissues has
phylogenetic implications, especially for the relationships among
problematic groups of fishes, or between fish and other
vertebrates. This symposium will bring ideas from different fields,
in biochemistry, genetics, developmental biology, biomaterials
and microscopy, together and assist in the development of
productive new ideas.

Dr. Gilles Cuny
Geological Museum, University of Copenhagen
ุster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark
Tel: (45) 3532 2364, Fax: (45) 3532 2325
Want to visit our collection? Have a look at
http://www.zmuc.dk/synthesys/