<
https://theconversation.com/snakebites-we-thought-wed-created-a-winning-new-antivenom-but-then-it-flopped-why-that-turned-out-to-be-a-good-thing-224411>
"Snakebites kill over 100,000 people each year, and hundreds of thousands of
survivors are left with long-term disabilities such as amputations.
Africa, Asia and Latin America are the regions most heavily affected. The most
venomous snakes in Africa are the black mamba, cobras and saw-scaled and carpet
vipers. In Asia, the Indian cobra, Russel’s viper, saw-scaled viper and common
krait are the most venomous.
In the Central America and northern South America regions, the venomous pit
viper
Bothrops asper is responsible for most of the fatal and harmful bites.
We are venom and antivenom specialists who spent four years developing a
therapeutic antibody to mitigate the effects of the pit viper’s bites. We were
certain that we’d met all the standards for an effective, safe and efficacious
antivenom. But, at the last hurdle, we realised the antibody didn’t neutralise
the snake’s toxins: it enhanced them, worsening the venom’s effects.
Initially this was, of course, very disappointing. But it was also a valuable
lesson. By reporting this new way that future antivenoms can fail, we have
highlighted a problem with the current recommendations for testing antivenoms
that was hidden until now.
Our lesson is likely to have a much larger impact on the development of
snakebite treatments than if the antibody had been a success, because the
discovery will help antivenom researchers focus their efforts so they don’t
fail at the last hurdle as we did."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
