• Question: Can you make certain medicines with snake venom?

    Asked by anon-252014 to Robert on 27 Apr 2020.
    • Photo: Robert Ives

      Robert Ives answered on 27 Apr 2020:

      There are already some medicines that have been created based on certain types of venom.

      Venom is usually dangerous (toxic) in very small amounts and used by animals as a way to harm or kill another animal. Different venoms work in different ways. Some venoms stop signals (called neurotransmission) being sent to the brain and around the body which can often prevent an animal from moving (called paralysis) or stop the brain from controlling how the organs work. Many cause the blood to either form into lumps (called co-agulation) which can lead to blockages in the heart and other organs, leading to death, others stop the blood from clotting at all so that the animal ‘bleeds to death’. These all sound pretty scary, but if you think about it, most medicines are actually also posions which will harm (and possibly kill) us if we take too much. Venoms can sometimes be used to develop medicines that ‘help’ humans and other animals. The ability to slow the transmission of signals to certain parts of the body can be used to reduce pain in patients. The ability to ‘thicken’ the blood of people with certain diseases (such as those with a disease call haemophilia) could help them to stop bleeding after an injury. The ability to ‘thin’ the blood of patients with heart disease and some other conditions could help them to live longer and in less pain. There are proteins in venom which can help do all of these – we just need to be very careful how we use them.

      So…… medicines based on some venoms can already be used to treat some diseases. Could they be used to help create more medicines? Absolutely, I think so. It’s a really interesting area of medicine to get involved with, plus you might get to work with some amazing animals.

Comments

  • Photo: anon-251388

    anon-251388 commented on :

    wow

  • Photo: Maria

    Maria commented on :

    Really good question! In fact, some chemicals or proteins found in snake, lizard or snail venoms are already being used in a controlled way to treat diseases such as diabetes or, as Robert mentioned, pain, high blood pressure or to stop bleeding. They come from quite scary animals such as the Gila monster or the pit viper. We should also remember that any of the drugs we take could work as a venom if we take way too much of them, even if they did not come from a poisonous animal or plant.