New Zealand researchers have created a material based on keratin - a protein found in hair and nails - that could revolutionise bone surgery using the product from sheep wool, Xinhuanet reports.

New Zealand sheep farmers' company Wool Equities subsidiary Keratec has acquired the rights to the product from the Otago University's corporate arm, Otago Innovation Ltd, and is working on commercialising it to service a market estimated to be worth at least $400 million by 2007.

The new material is strong enough to form a structural repair and is gradually absorbed by the body and encourages fresh bone to grow back, the Sunday Star-Times was quoted as saying.
 
Bones damaged by trauma or tumours are currently repaired using bone chips harvested from elsewhere in the body -- a process that causes its own complications -- or using synthetics such as titanium, which do not promote bone recovery,

The research was initiated by George Dias at Otago University's anatomy and structural biology department. A former maxillo-facial surgeon, Dias was driven to work on bone substitutes by the shortcomings of existing technology.

"I thought it would be a huge boon to everyone if there was a good artificial bone product that behaved like someone's own bone," Dias was quoted as saying.

"One day I was looking at my fingernails, which are made of keratin, and thought this would be an ideal material to use as a bone substitute," he said.

Wool consists of about 95 percent keratin protein -- and has useful biological and physical properties that make it ideal as a potential bone substitute. But there was a great deal of work to be done to develop a viable product, according to Dias.

Keratec Research Manager Rob Kelly said, "we understood the potential of keratin as a material in those applications, but it is important not to underestimate the technical hurdles we had to overcome."