Liquid crystals and their stabilized analogues as templates of biocomposites

Mineralized biocomposites are either natural, such as skeletal structures, or artificial, such as diverse implants and new biomaterials. In both cases, their organic parts are liquid crystals or stabilized analogues, closely related to these intermediate states of matter, and they serve as templates for the inorganic parts. The main difficulty in devising new biomimetic materials seems to be our incomplete knowledge of phase diagrams and also of the paths to adopt in these diagrams to reach the interesting phases, which are often metastable.