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Snake Venom
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by maredarny on January 5, 2004
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What are some of the recent research findings involving snake venom and what has this accomplished in the medical community?
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RE: Snake Venom
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by BGF on January 5, 2004
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A key discovery lately has been that true venom predated the evolution of all of the 'non-venomous' snakes. This completely changed the entire perception of snake evolution. Snake venom has had a very long history in drug design and development. For example, captropril was the founding member of a class of high-blood pressure regulating drugs called ACE inhibitors (ACE = hrea as venoms are a tremendous natural pharmacological library. The major limitation of snake venom proteins is not in their actions (plenty of very useful actions in there) but rather that they are too large, reacting violently with the immune system. In contrast, the toxins present in cone snail venoms are much smaller but just as potent. The conotoxins are so small in fact that they fly underneath the immunological radar. Therefore, they can be used in the unmodified form. This is a tremendous advantage since modifying snake venom proteins typically results in the loss of the very activity that made them of use in the first place. Changing any protein is a very time consuming and frustrating process. This does not mean that snake venom proteins are not without use. They are tremendously useful as laboratory investigational tools due to their rare combination of narrowly targeted action but high levels of activity.
Cheers
Bryan
Dr. Bryan Grieg Fry
ARC-APD Research Fellow
Deputy Director
Australian Venom Research Unit
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