Founding editorial--bone biology

The skeleton is a complicated vertebrate structure, comprised of bone cells that form, modulate, and resorb the extracellular structure of bone. It is the extracellular structure, made up of the bone mineral (largely calcium phosphate) and the bone matrix, which constitutes the visible skeleton and the mechanical support for the vertebrate body. The matrix is the protein structure on which the bone mineral is laid down, many components of which have been identified in recent years.