New coating may help joint replacements.

• Position: Your Life

Broken bones and joint replacements someday may heal faster, thanks to an unusual coating for medical implants under development, reports the journal Ceramics International, as researchers have found that bone cells grow and reproduce faster on a textured surface than they do on a smooth one--and they grow best when they can cling to a microscopic shag carpet made of tiny metal oxide wires.

In tests, the wires boosted cell growth by nearly 80% compared to other surfaces, suggesting that the coating would help healthy bone form a strong bond with an implant fester --and engineers developed an affordable technique for creating the wires.

"What's really exciting about this technique is that we don't have to carve the nanowires from a solid piece of metal or alloy. We can grow them from scratch by exploiting the physics and chemistry of the materials," explains materials scientist Sheikh Akbar.

Study coauthor Derek Hansford, a biomedical engineer, says that the coating could aid people who have hip and knee replacements, dental implants, or broken bones that require screws and plates to repair them.

"Our hope is that this surface treatment will become a simple-to-implement modification to titanium implants to...