Tim Friedean ex-mechanical of Wisconsin (USA) e fond of snakesundertook in 2001 an extreme path to protect himself from his collection of lethal reptiles: self-dejecting low doses of poison. After 24 years from the beginning of this risky self-speculation and after over 200 bites, TIM’s blood could revolutionize the Treatments against bites of these poisonous animals. A study published in the magazine Cell and conducted by the Californian company Centivax, of which TIM is now director of herpetology, has shown that the antibodies present in his blood are able to neutralize a wide range of mortal neurotoxinsopening new doors for the production of antidotes safer and more effective and, at best, of a universal antidote.
Tim Friede’s story: more than 850 poison injections and more than 200 snake bites
Tim Friede has been a great one from a young age fond of snakesinterest that pushed him to collect numerous species Highly poisonous like Cobra, Mamba and Taipan. To protect himself from any bites of his “pets” to Tim, he thought of gradually exposing his body to small doses of poison extracted from his own snakes to stimulate his immune system to produce the antibodies needed to neutralize toxinsmaking it more resistant to future bites. Friede did what antidotes producers have been doing a reference animal such as horses or sheep for decades, becoming the “horse” himself.
The diluted poison self-injection began in 2001 and was not free of potentially fatal risks. The resident in Wisconsin, he suffered his first bite From an Egyptian cobra during the extraction of the poison, fortunately it was already protected by previous injections and had no serious consequences. However, only an hour after the first bite, a monoculus cobra skewed its teeth in the right biceps. This second bite He reduced him to the end of life, was hospitalized and remained in a coma for four days showing that his immunity was not enough to deal with close multiples. After this bad experience Tim realized that his self-speculation had to be perfected.
In the following years he added more than 850 doses poison from a wide variety of snake species. In addition to the injections, Friede became bite more than 200 timesmost of which induced voluntarily. Among the most powerful poisons that has been injected are those of Taipan coastal, aquatic cobra, western Adamantine Crotalo and four species of mamba.
TIM’s blood for the studies on universal antidote
Tim Friede’s self-speculation has captured the attention of the scientific community and the co-founder of Centivax, an American company that develops vaccines and antidotes, Jacob Glanville. The latter, in 2017, asked Tim blood samples And, once consent is obtained, a team of researchers has isolated and selected antibodies able to bind to lethal neurotoxins of different species of snakes, in particular 19 species belonging to the family of Elapid which includes almost half of the species of existing poisonous snakes. The results of the study were recently published in the magazine Cell and showed theeffectiveness of these antibodies in protecting some mice, used as model animals, from the action of the poison.
Snake bite poisoning, added in 2017 to the list of diseases neglected byWorld Health Organization (WHO), due to every year between 81 000 and 138 000 deaths and between 300 000 and 400 000 permanent disabilities. Traditional methods of production of antidotes based on the collection of antibodies of animals such as horses and sheep is a method that presents some limits As each antidote is specific for a kind of snake and antibodies can cause serious immune reactions in the recipient (anaphylaxis and serum disease).
The final idea of the company is to obtain a universal antidoteable to neutralize any type of toxin from different species with a single product, eliminating the need to identify the responsible species and increasing safety, power and reliability. It is important to emphasize that antibodies, despite having been originally isolated from the blood of Tim Friede, current director of herpetology (reptile zoology and amphibians) at Centivax, would be large -scale products in the laboratory through techniques of Recombinant DNA use cell or microorganisms.
The scientific community has raised some doubts and concern both on the scalability and accessibility of the potential new antidote and on theethics of the origin of the research, it is a car-speculation. In addition, the developed antidote focuses on the elapids, which do not represent all the poisonous species of the earth, further effective spectrum agents will be needed even against the Viperidaeanother poisonous family, a goal that researchers intend to pursue with the same approach.
