In a small room at a building at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, Emma Califf lifted a stone slab over a plastic box, revealing a 7.5-centimeter-long scorpion.
“This is one of our desert scorpions, the largest scorpion in North America,” says the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum reptilian breeder.
Besides scorpions, Califf is keeping more than 20 rattlesnakes and other animals in the hallway. All serve the purpose of extracting healing venom.
The field of research in the removal of proteins in venom has grown rapidly in recent years, opening up new opportunities for the pharmaceutical industry. As pharmaceutical companies study the precursor composition of toxins, the number of molecules that have the potential to become drugs has also increased significantly.
“A century ago, we thought that venom had three or four components. Now we understand that a single venom has thousands of components, which is extremely promising for medicine,” said Leslie Boyer, professor of medicine. emeritus professor at the University of Arizona, said.
One of the most potent drugs available today comes from the dangerous funnel-web spider on Australia’s Fraser Island. Its venom can prevent cell death after a heart attack.
Normally, blood flow to the heart decreases after a heart attack. This causes the cell environment to become acidic and the cells to die. The venom of the dangerous funnel web spider contains a protein called Hi1A, which is scheduled to be tested next year, which could prevent this phenomenon. It has been studied in the laboratory on working cells of the human heart.
Nathan Palpant, a researcher at the University of Queensland, Australia, says the venom can block the body’s ability to sense acid. “Therefore the risk of death is blocked, the number of dead cells decreases, the viability of heart cells increases,” he said.
If proven effective in trials, medical staff could use a drug made from spider venom in an emergency. The drug prevents damage that occurs after a heart attack or preserves a donor heart for a longer time, helping to improve the outcome of transplants.
“It would be a potential heart attack drug, born from one of Australia’s most hated creatures,” said Bryan Fry, an associate professor of toxicology at the University of Queensland.
Rattlesnakes are used to get venom to develop certain drugs. Image: NY Times
The technology for processing venom compounds is very advanced, creating many new opportunities in the medical field.
“Today, we can do tests with just a few micrograms of venom. 10 or 15 years ago, we needed hundreds of micrograms,” said Dr. Fry.
The source of venom in the wild is also extremely rich, from hundreds of thousands of species of reptiles, insects, spiders, snails and jellyfish. They differ in the amount, potency and proportion of toxins, depending on the habitat and diet of each species, and even change with temperature and climate.
In general, venom is made from a mixture of different poisons, including proteins with unique properties. Venom has three main mechanisms: neurotoxin attacks the nervous system, paralyzing the victim; hemotoxins target the blood; Local tissue toxins attack the area around the site of exposure to the poison.
In fact, venom has long been used to cure diseases, but there is no science to back it up. Acupuncture with poisoned needles and bee stings are traditional forms of treatment.
Many drugs derived from venom have been marketed. One of the first drugs, captopril to treat blood pressure, was invented in the 1970s from the venom of the Brazilian jararaca snake. Another drug, exenatide, derived from the venom of the Gila Monster lizard, treats type 2 diabetes. Vampire bat venom is made into an anticoagulant, used to treat stroke and pain. heart. The venom of the Israeli death scorpion is the source of a compound that was found in clinical trials to detect breast and colon tumors.
Some venom proteins are considered potential candidates for new drugs, but they need to go through a long process of production and clinical testing, which can take years and cost millions of dollars.
In March, experts from the University of Utah announced that they had discovered a fast-metabolizing molecule in cone snails. Normally, cone snails shoot venom into fish, causing the fish’s glucose to drop rapidly, thereby dying. This promises to be a diabetes drug. Bee venom is effective against a wide range of diseases, and has recently been shown to kill breast cancer cells.
To date, the demand for venom is increasing. Emma Califf had to go to the desert in search of more bark scorpions. Dr Boyer said Arizona is a “venom bank”, with more poisonous species than any other US state.
Normally, experts harvest scorpion venom by applying a small electrical current to their bodies, causing them to secrete drops of amber liquid at the tail end. With snakes, experts gently massage the venom glands until they release fluid from the teeth. After the collection process, the poison is sent to researchers around the globe.
Thuc Linh (According to NY Times)
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