Australia’s eastern brown and scaled viper are lethally venomous snakes. You definitely don’t want to meet them in the wild, because a single bite can kill you. However, scientists at the University of Queensland believe that the same deadly venom can serve as a life-saving treatment. Their new study has shown that venom from those two snakes could be used to stop uncontrolled bleeding.
Eastern brown snake is deadly – its venom can kill you. However, in other contexts it can actually save you. Image credit: Bernard DUPONT via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Eastern brown snake, also known as the common brown snake, is a highly venomous killer. In fact, it is usually considered the second-most venomous terrestrial snake in the world, behind only the inland taipan, which also lives in Australia. Some people collapse just 2 minutes after being bitten, but usually death occurs in a bit longer period than that. Now scientists would like to use that venom to treat injuries. In fact, scientists are trying to bring this venom to pharmacies so that everyone could buy it.
Scientists are creating a gel that could be included in first aid kits to treat uncontrolled bleeding. It is known from statistics that 40 % of trauma-related deaths are due to people bleeding out. Meanwhile these snakes kill animals and people by inducing coagulation. It doesn’t take much imagination to see that in some cases quick blood coagulation can actually be advantageous. For example, after suffering a chainsaw wound in the forest or a shrapnel penetration in a battlefield.
Researchers discovered that protein from eastern brown and scaled viper venom could be used to accelerate the body’s natural blood-clotting process. They are now working on a gel, which could be applied directly onto the wound, delivering those proteins and essentially stopping bleeding very quickly. Scientists believe that a snake venom-based treatment could enhance the body’s capacity to heal large wounds.
Amanda Kijas, lead author of the study, said: “Nature has created the most elegant and sophisticated mechanisms, and we can repurpose them to save people from dying due to uncontrolled bleeding. The research shows there is five times less blood loss, and clots form three times more quickly when the venom gel is applied, compared to the body’s natural process.”
Those proteins in snake venom are so potent that they could save people with haemophilia and those using blood thinners. At the moment the snake venom-based gel is being tested in pre-clinical evaluations and is being scaled-up toward commercial application.
Although deadly, snake venom is just another substance from a rich library of nature. It is just another material that we need to employ to our advantage. If we manage to do that, we are going to see tremendous gains – snake venom can save more lives in battlefields and the workplace than it takes in Australia’s brush.
Source: University of Queensland
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