What if one man’s veins … held the ultimate snakebite cure!
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
Traditional antivenoms? They’re made from animal blood – YUCK! That can lead to allergic reactions, and they only work for specific snakes’ poison. Is there a simpler solution?
Enter Timothy Friede. His hobby? Ingesting hundreds of snake venoms. Yikes.
Friede’s blood was studied by Peter Kwong and team at Columbia and the National Institutes of Health. Turns out, he produces a powerful combo of antibodies that neutralize many fatal venoms.
In mice, this antivenom protects against normally lethal snake bites. It blocked nineteen of the world’s deadliest snake venoms…
You hear that, you nasty cobras and mambas? Go ahead, bite me!
Reference: Eacock, A., Rowland, H.M., van’t Hof, A.E. et al. Adaptive colour change and background choice behaviour in peppered moth caterpillars is mediated by extraocular photoreception. Commun Biol 2, 286 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-019-0502-7