People have looked to nature for medicines since ancient times. And modern scientists have searched the world’s rainforests for new medicines. But the ocean may be an even better source. At least twenty-six drugs that come from sea organisms are currently being used or developed. And a new generation of chemists hopes to increase that number.
Chemist Mande Holford has an unusual partner in her hunt for new medicines: a fierce, little snail that eats fish. But she admits that her studies of the creature are not all scientific.
“I fell in love with snails because their shells are gorgeous.”
Yet the tongue-like proboscides of the snails are deadly. They inject their victims with venom made of poisonous chains of amino acids called peptides.
“What I like to say is that the snails produce sort of a cluster bomb. Inside of each venom, you have between fifty to two hundred peptides, and all of those peptides target something major along the nervous system. One thing that they hit is a pain signal. When they silence the pain signal, the prey doesn’t go into fight or flight mode.”
So the fish stays calmer than it normally would, even as it is being eaten! Mande Holford says chemists have already had one major success using the snail’s peptides. It is a drug called Prialt. It eases pain for people with cancer and HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
“On your neurons, you have these ‘gates’ that allow things to pass back and forth. The gate that controls chronic pain, they found a way to shut it down using one of the peptides.”
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