Human hair keratin-based hydrogels as dynamic matrices for facilitating wound healing

Abstract Recently, human hair-derived keratin protein has been recognized as biomaterial with high potential due to its excellent bioactivity and biocompatibility. Here, we designed human hair-derived keratin-based in situ cross-linkable hydrogels that can serve as a dynamic matrix for the enhanced wound healing. We demonstrated that our developed the keratin-based hydrogels accelerated re-epithelization and wound healing process in a full-thickness animal. Also, we investigated the molecular mechanism underlying the enhanced wound healing. In conclusion, our study proposes that human hair-derived keratin-based hydrogels with excellent bioactivity have great potential for use as a wound healing material, along with its other biomedical applications.