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Biotech Science

Blowfish Poison Derivative Could Be A Painkiller 66

Posted by timothy from the do-not-exceed-listed-dosage dept.
Makarand writes "According to this Reuters article, a Vancouver (Canada) based company is testing a painkiller derived from blowfish poison. The drug has passed two phases of clinical tests and during testing it could ease pain in terminally ill cancer patients with a dosage of few micrograms. The drug is a sodium channel blocker and works by stopping nerves from sending pain signals to the brain. The company says that the drug does not have the side effects of morphine and is non-addictive. A single blowfish can provide about 600 doses of this drug."
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Blowfish Poison Derivative Could Be A Painkiller More

Blowfish Poison Derivative Could Be A Painkiller

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  • Nature (Score:5, Interesting)

    by $exyNerdie ( 683214 ) on Sunday November 30, 2003 @03:58PM (#7593598) Homepage Journal
    We have so much to learn from nature !!

    For example, the use of leeches in in surgeries where increasing circulation and inhibiting clotting are critical, such as reconstructive surgery after breast cancer.
    Leeches have a natural anticoagulant in their saliva which increases blood flow through traumatized tissue, helping to keep it alive during lengthy surgeries. Leeches even come with a natural anesthetic and antibiotic to help break down clots and keep the blood flowing.

    • Re:Nature (Score:5, Insightful)

      by GigsVT ( 208848 ) on Sunday November 30, 2003 @04:04PM (#7593628) Journal
      Funny how the medical field is quick to adopt things like leeches, but when it comes to medical marijuana, they don't want to legalize it because "it's not an isolated and purified medication".

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re:Nature (Score:2, Insightful)

          by GigsVT ( 208848 )
          There are some government shills in the medical field that go on political shows and present such arguments.

          Interestingly, it's by no means every government employed MD, there are many within the NIH and other government organizations who have rational ideas about illegal drugs, they are just regularly ignored if they speak out.

          • Re:Nature (Score:3, Interesting)

            by GreyWolf3000 ( 468618 )
            That's interesting. This problem also bleeds into nutrition. The USDA-approved American diet is widely criticized by most doctors and nutritionists that study diet and health extensively. IANAV (I am not a vegan, or even a vegetarian), but studies indicate that virtually every patient with adult onset diabetes who has adopted an all-natural vegan diet has been cured of diabetes.

            I hate to automatically assume the worst, but it would seem that from a health care standpoint, healthy individuals make much w

      • Re:Nature (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Ieshan ( 409693 )
        Nobody's doing leeches as a recreational drug. Putting marijuana into pharmacies has a huge social implication far beyond it's medical effectiveness.
        • Sure, nobody's doing leeches as a recreational drug......yet.
        • People are doing many other (prescription) drugs recreationally. Many of which are much more addictive and dangerous than pot, and yet they are schedule II or III, and pot remains schedule I, even though there is obviously potential medical benefit.
        • Nobody's doing leeches as a recreational drug.

          Speak for yourse... Ow! My Blood!
        • Nobody's doing leeches as a recreational drug.

          IN SOVIET RUSSIA, medicinal leeches get high on YOU!

          Hey, I think there's a cool '80s song lyric in there, somewhere [todaystomsawyer.com].

          (There's nothing as dangerous as a bored programmer with Karma to burn...)
        • Dooood, I'm smoking a serious leech right now! Far out!
      • Synthetic THC (Marinol) is currently used in medicine and is readily available to anyone licensed to prescribe drugs. It won't get you high unless you take a lot of it, though, and it makes you more sleepy than stony. Er, reputedly...

    • Re:Nature: Natural != Safe (Score:5, Insightful)

      by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Sunday November 30, 2003 @10:01PM (#7595566)
      We have so much to learn from nature !!

      An excellent point, but we need to be cautious. Although we have many medicines derived from natural sources, these natural substances require just as much scrutiny as man-made synthetic ones. Most natural medicines are derived from what amounts to chemical weapons created by organisms to either kill/disable prey or kill/sicken predators. As such, they can have nasty side-effects.

      A blowfish, leech, or cannibis plant does not care if a person gets cancer 10 years later, suffers permanent neurological damage, or occasionally dies abruptly. In many cases, extreme toxic reactions are the entire point of the chemical. On the one hand, humans have millions of years of evolution to adapt to these natural chemicals. On the other hand, these organisms have had millions of evolution to create ever nastier defensive/offensive chemicals.

      Even long-used natural medicines can be unsafe. Very few cultures have had the inclination and record-keeping skills to correlate medicine consumption with long-term illnesses like cancer, dementia, heart disease, liver disease, etc. Very few cultures have had the numerical sample size to detect medicines that might be fatal on a rare but consistent basis. Despite a multi-thousand-year history of use, it was only in the last few decades that we uncovered the link between willow bark (aspirin) and Reyes syndrome (which is rare but fatal for children).

      Just because something is natural, does not make it safe. Whether blowfish toxin or leech saliva make a good medications will take millions of dollars of clinical research and then perhaps millions of patients to discover.
    • So, want to make bets on how long it will be before blowfish are fished for drug manufacturers to the brink of extinction?

      A similar problem occurred when yew tree bark was found to contain a useful breast cancer drug. Taking the bark usually killed the trees and they aren't prolific in the first place; fine if you got it before the trees were wiped out. Fortunately someone figured out how to process a version of the drug that was in the needles.

      I hope they can make an artificial version of the blowfish

  • so how many.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Sunday November 30, 2003 @03:58PM (#7593605) Homepage Journal
    first thought it be a crypto article?

    and of the new drug, let the stimutacs [tvtome.com] jokes roll! sealab kicks ass!

  • Does it mean... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Jesrad ( 716567 ) on Sunday November 30, 2003 @04:04PM (#7593632) Journal
    Does it mean I can now order some Fugu sashimi from the local chemist ?

  • So 600 doses... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by BoomerSooner ( 308737 ) on Sunday November 30, 2003 @04:11PM (#7593670) Homepage Journal
    will run about $500/per dose? Remember recouping R&D is expensive.

  • Netcraft Survey Reports... (Score:3, Funny)

    by ActiveSX ( 301342 ) on Sunday November 30, 2003 @05:30PM (#7594106) Homepage
    BSD is dea... Wait a second. Poison? Drugs? Biotech? Shit, wrong topic.

  • TTX (Score:5, Interesting)

    by yet another coward ( 510 ) <yacoward AT yahoo DOT com> on Sunday November 30, 2003 @05:52PM (#7594254)
    Tetrodotoxin is commonly used in biomedical research to silence neurons. It blocks sodium channels. I had wondered in the past why it did not exist as a drug for humans.

    There are many sodium channel blocking anesthetics available now. The drugs that end in -caine are mostly sodium channel blockers. Benzocaine, novacaine and lidocaine are examples.

    From the article, it seems that TTX is being investigated for general systemic use rather than as a local anesthetic. There are only vague mentions of injections. I would appreciate more information about the drug's indications and delivery.

  • And the impact of psychological pain? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Sunday November 30, 2003 @06:38PM (#7594515)
    Morphine and other opiates are bad because they depress the entire central nervous system -- they deaden everthing. Yet this is also a good quality for treating certain patient cases mentioned by the article. The problem with a blowfish analgesic is that it will alleviate physical pain, but do nothing for the psychological pain of terminal illness. Whereas morphine will make you forget your troubles, blowfish medicine will leave you clearheaded to consider your fate.

    Otherwise, blowfish medicine might do wonders for pain associated with surgery and trama. And, its nonaddictive nature might help doctors be less stingy with painkillers. Unfortunately, there remains the issue of whether managed care will cover the costs for mere pain control.
    • I guess it depends on the person.

      I know for myself, I hate feeling like I do not have control over my mental state. I prefer being able to see what is going on with me and my surroundings with a clear head.
    • The problem with a blowfish analgesic is that it will alleviate physical pain, but do nothing for the psychological pain of terminal illness.

      That's not a bug; it's a feature.

      A drug with narrower effects permits a physician to more precisely tailor the treatment. Being able to treat chronic pain without suffering a corresponding loss in the ability to think clearly is a tremendously useful thing.

      The psychological effects of terminal illness are probably not best handled with opiates anyway. Counsell

      • The psychological effects of terminal illness are probably not best handled with opiates anyway. Counselling and antidepressant medication would seem to be indicated--not doping patients into a blissful stupor.

        Absolutely correct! How can a physician diagnose a patient's condition when the patient is in la-la land due to his/her meds?

        That said, though -- and not to belittle the point at all -- I see this as something of a Godsend for straight-arrow geeks like myself. Never so much as took a single puff

  • Cool, first zombies, now this (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ralphus ( 577885 ) on Sunday November 30, 2003 @07:25PM (#7594730)
    Tetrodotoxin [fda.gov]is pretty neat stuff. I recall years ago reading The Serpent and the Rainbow [amazon.com] about Harvard ethnobotanist, Wade Davis' [rimba.com] adventures with Haitian voodoo culture and exploring the uses of tetrodotoxin to create zombies. Don't let the cheesy fictional movie [imdb.com] fool you, the book is legitimate ethnobotany and well worth a read.

    Anyhow, tetrodotoxin fascinated me then, and it does now. Maybe someday I'll be in Japan and actually get to try Fugu [destroy-all-monsters.com] and have a first hand experience with a light consumption of tetrodotoxin.

  • Hmmmm (Score:3, Insightful)

    by aphexbrett ( 220057 ) on Sunday November 30, 2003 @07:53PM (#7594903) Homepage
    I don't see why this is news worthy. Just about *every* single drug today has its origins in some marine life (or bacteria/mold). For instance, many research groups get millions of grant dollars flying to remote areas, cutting up the local inhabitants, and then running cell assays on them. If they make it through a certain number of assays (generally for cytoxicity, but others exist) then they publish the info. Just check out the Journal of Natural Products [acs.org]. Issues upon issues of this stuff. The interesting stuff comes later, when the synthetic organic chemists try to create these things artificially, generally in really low yields. In fact, a project I was working on was the synthesis of a marine ladder toxin that is one of the active compounds in red tide catastrophes (see this book [amazon.com]). It too blocks sodium ion channels. Probably the most famous cancer fighting compound, taxol, is isolated from the bark of the pacific yew tree [forestry.ca].

    • "Just about *every* single drug today has its origins in some marine life (or bacteria/mold)."

      This is simply untruth. Natural products and natural-product synthetic analogs are only a minor fraction of modern drugs. (But an important fraction).

      Synthesis of natural products gets publicity. Complex molecules are very difficult to make in the lab. The academia groups are doing it for prestige and fun. But if it takes 3 grad students and 3 postdocs to complete a synthesis of a 2 mg of the material within 4 ye

  • But.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by TrebleJunkie ( 208060 ) <ezahurak AT atlanticbb DOT net> on Sunday November 30, 2003 @10:25PM (#7595712) Homepage Journal
    I know this is all in the name of science, but what's Hootie gonna do without the rest of the band?
  • Tetradotoxin is the main ingredient used to turn people into zombies. Yes, really.. there's a well-documented case - search for Clarvius Narcisse.

    Frankly, I'm surprised there hasn't been more research (evil grin)...
  • Come on, pal! Fugu me!

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