For nearly 20 years, a man in the United States has been injecting himself with snake venom a dangerous mission that has now led to the development of what scientists are calling an “unparalleled” antivenom.
Tim Friede, a former truck mechanic, has risked his life to build immunity to some of the world’s most deadly snakes. Now, researchers have created a broad antivenom that could one day help save thousands of lives around the world, according to a report by the BBC.
Tim Friede’s journey began with a simple goal: to protect himself from snakebites while handling venomous reptiles. Over the years, he has survived more than 200 bites and over 700 venom injections from snakes like black mambas, cobras, kraits, and taipans. Though he once ended up in a coma after being bitten by two cobras in a row, he never gave up. “I didn’t want to die, I didn’t want to lose a finger. I didn’t want to miss work,” he told the BBC.
But Friede’s mission soon became bigger than self-protection. He wanted to help others especially those living in countries where snakebites are common and access to antivenom is limited. “It just became a lifestyle and I just kept pushing and pushing for the people who are 8,000 miles away from me who die from snakebite,” he said.
Right now, snakebite treatment depends on matching the venom to a specific antivenom, which is usually made by injecting venom into animals like horses and harvesting their antibodies. This method has serious limitations, venom from the same snake species can vary depending on where the snake lives. That means antivenom made for snakes in one country might not work as well in another.
Looking for a better solution, a team of researchers focused on a different kind of protection—broadly neutralising antibodies. These antibodies can target parts of snake venom that are common across different species, rather than just the unique bits.
That’s when Dr Jacob Glanville, head of the biotech firm Centivax, found Tim Friede. “If anybody in the world has developed these broadly neutralising antibodies, it’s going to be him,” he said. After contacting Friede, Glanville asked for blood samples, joking: “This might be awkward, but I’d love to get my hands on some of your blood.”
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With ethical approval in place, the team collected samples and began testing them on venom from 19 of the most dangerous snakes, including black mambas and cobras. The research, published in the journal Cell, showed that Friede’s blood had antibodies that could fight off three major types of neurotoxins used by elapid snakes. They created a combination treatment using these antibodies and tested it on mice.
The results were impressive. The antivenom cocktail protected the mice from deadly doses of venom from 13 of the 19 snake species, and gave partial protection against the others. Dr Glanville described this level of protection as “unparalleled,” saying it could help cover many species that currently have no specific treatment.
Experts in the field are excited. Professor Nick Casewell from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine said the findings were “certainly novel” and offered “a strong piece of evidence” that the approach could work. However, he warned that more research is still needed before the antivenom can be used in people.
The scientists now hope to improve the formula by adding a fourth antibody to offer full protection against all elapid venom. They also want to develop treatments for other types of snake venom, like the haemotoxins used by vipers, which attack the blood.
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Professor Peter Kwong, one of the lead researchers at Columbia University, said the team’s long-term goal is to create either one antivenom that works for all snakes or a simple two-part treatment one for elapids and one for vipers. “Tim’s antibodies are really quite extraordinary,” he said. “He taught his immune system to get this very, very broad recognition,” BBC reported.
As for Tim Friede, seeing his blood help create a possible universal antivenom makes all the pain worth it. “I’m doing something good for humanity and that was very important to me,” he said. “I’m proud of it. It’s pretty cool.”
