Deadly Venom From Spiders and Snakes May Cure What Ails You

Efforts to tease apart the vast swarm of proteins in venom -- a field called venomics -- have burgeoned in recent years, leading to important drug discoveries. From a report: In a small room in a building at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, the invertebrate keeper, Emma Califf, lifts up a rock in a plastic box. "This is one of our desert hairies," she said, exposing a three-inch-long scorpion, its tail arced over its back. "The largest scorpion in North America." This captive hairy, along with a swarm of inch-long bark scorpions in another box, and two dozen rattlesnakes of varying species and sub- species across the hall, are kept here for the coin of the realm: their venom. Efforts to tease apart the vast swarm of proteins in venom -- a field called venomics -- have burgeoned in recent years, and the growing catalog of compounds has led to a number of drug discoveries. As the components of these natural toxins continue to be assayed by evolving technologies, the number of promising molecules is also growing.

"A century ago we thought venom had three or four components, and now we know just one type of venom can have thousands," said Leslie V. Boyer, a professor emeritus of pathology at the University of Arizona. "Things are accelerating because a small number of very good laboratories have been pumping out information that everyone else can now use to make discoveries." She added, "There's a pharmacopoeia out there waiting to be explored." It is a striking case of modern-day scientific alchemy: The most highly evolved of natural poisons on the planet are creating a number of effective medicines with the potential for many more.

One of the most promising venom-derived drugs to date comes from the deadly Fraser Island funnel web spider of Australia, which halts cell death after a heart attack. Blood flow to the heart is reduced after a heart attack, which makes the cell environment more acidic and leads to cell death. The drug, a protein called Hi1A, is scheduled for clinical trials next year. In the lab, it was tested on the cells of beating human hearts. It was found to block their ability to sense acid, "so the death message is blocked, cell death is reduced, and we see improved heart cell survival," said Nathan Palpant, a researcher at the University of Queensland in Australia who helped make the discovery.

I don't like spiders and snakes

[koko]

but that ain't what is takes

What's new about this?

[tlhIngan]

There's a whole industry devoted to "milking" spiders, snakes, scorpions and other creepy crawlies of venom. Venom has a lot of medicinal uses (as well as being used to create anti-venom) which is why people spend their days collecting fractions of a drop of venom from huge collections of bugs. (The average spider and such doesn't produce very much venom at all, and it takes a huge number of them to produce any appreciable amount).

We know it's useful, and have been collecting it for decades now.

Re:

[crunchygranola]

The article states that exploiting venom for medicine has a long history, more than just some decades, so it is way ahead of you.

It appears that with modern biomedical technology the ability to separate, identify and classify all the compounds has gone way up in the last decade or so. So that is what is new about it. (Also, the news does not always have to only cover stuff that has "never happened before" - discussing important medical research even in established categories informs the subscribers.)

Interes

Either it cures you, or it doesn't matter

[RightwingNutjob]

Either way your problems are over and I get my money.

Win win!

Pain Killer Industry (Was Opiods)

[Canberra1]

Venom can make strong pain killers. They can be combined with other known pain killers, but this is not done because it costs too much (even if the patient has just days to live anyway). tarantula venom could be used as an alternative to opioid pain killers for people seeking chronic pain relief. snake venom called mambalgins can relieve pain. Prialt, derived from the venom of cone snails, is used by some of the estimated 22 million adults in the US who suffer from severe and chronic pain. The takehome here

Re:

[OrSpace]

I've heard that venom is widely used in the pain killer industry as well, but it's way too expensive to use venom if you have chronic pain. In that case, cannabis helps a lot, and I grow it in my house with Herbies [herbiesheadshop.com] seeds because it's way cheaper than just buying marijuana, and I can tell you that it's a great pain killer too.