Sheep Wool Protein Shows Promise as New Scaffold for Bone Regeneration

Researchers at King's College London demonstrated that keratin extracted from sheep wool can guide bone growth in animal models, outperforming traditional collagen scaffolds in tissue organization.

Scientists at King's College London have converted keratin, a protein found in sheep's wool, into a durable scaffold for bone repair. After confirming that human bone cells proliferated on the material in vitro, they implanted the keratin membranes into rats with large skull lesions that would not heal on their own. Over several weeks, the wool-derived scaffolds promoted bone growth that was more organized and structurally similar to healthy bone than that produced with the current gold-standard collagen scaffolds, which generated more volume but less orderly tissue.

The keratin membranes remained stable throughout healing and integrated well with surrounding tissue, addressing known weaknesses of collagen such as rapid degradation and high production cost. Researchers suggest that this renewable, waste-derived material could become a scalable alternative for regenerative medicine and dental applications. Dr. Sherif Elsharkawy emphasized that the animal-model success moves the technology beyond a conceptual stage toward potential clinical use.