The development of bioactive materials that can mimic bone tissue has been an area of active research to try and improve the process of implant integration. Wool-derived keratin, a readily available natural polymer, has been shown in vivo to enhance bone healing and as such may be a novel material for use in the development of biomimetic devices. Coating titanium with keratin, therefore, may be a promising approach to achieve this, but effective bonding between keratin and titanium and the molecular response of osteoblasts to keratin has not been fully delineated. Using aminosilane (APTES) and glutaraldehyde (GA) to prepare the titanium surface, two coating strategies were employed in the present study i.e., solvent casting and molecular grafting, to try and improve the coating's chemical and mechanical properties and improve the interaction between keratin and adherent osteoblastic cells. This thesis had three main goals. First, to characterize the physiochemical and mechanical properties of the keratin coating using various analytical techniques. Second, to evaluate the cytocompatibility of the keratin coating with osteoblastic MG-63 cells in vitro. Finally, to investigate the bone healing response to keratin-coated titanium in vivo using a rat calvarial defect model. [...]