Make a Break

A broken bone takes weeks to heal – while new bone forms and the broken pieces of old tissue are broken down and resorbed into the body. Highlighted in bright colours in these mouse femurs, we see five weeks of healing after a fracture, with osteoblast cells working to build new bone highlighted in yellow, next to purple areas of bone resorption. In the final two weeks (rightmost columns) the lower femur is put under mechanical stress – 'loading' the bone with pressure which accelerates new bone formation compared the unstressed bone (top). By considering how mechanical stress spreads across the healing bone, researchers can now look for different patterns of genes switching on in different places – mechanomic clues that might guide healing human bones, too.

Written by John Ankers

John Ankers

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A former researcher in systems biology, John is now an online biology tutor and professional coach supporting the wellbeing of scientists and NHS professionals. He's writing, too, of course.

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• Image from work by Neashan Mathavan and colleagues
• Institute for Biomechanics, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Science Advances, January 2025