The black mamba is one of the deadliest animals on the planet, with a venomous bite so powerful that it's considered 100 percent fatal unless an antivenin is given within 20 minutes. It's perhaps strange, then, that a team of French researchers examined the venom's "cocktail of chemicals" for a new kind of painkiller, says Ed Yong at Discover Magazine. What they found is a potentially powerful new molecule that, as promising early results suggest, appears to be a safe alternative to morphine. Here's what you should know:
What exactly did scientists discover?
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How effective were the proteins at dulling pain?
Extremely effective. The team named tested the proteins — dubbed "mambalgins — on mice, and found that the ASIC-blocking snake venom was as effective as some opiates, including morphine, in dulling pain. "Pain pathways are pretty well conserved between mice and humans," says Baron, "making us confident that these peptides will also be efficient in humans."
Why are mambalgins safer than morphine?
"Morphine acts on the opioid pathway in the brain," says James Gallagher at BBC News. That means that while it can diminish severe pain, it's also extremely addictive. Side effects include "headaches, difficulty thinking, vomiting, and muscle twitching." Though it's still early, the isolated mambalgins identified in the snake's venom don't appear to have any toxic side effects.
What do scientists think about the breakthrough?
"It's very exciting," says Dr. Nicholas Casewell, a snake venom expert at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. What we're talking about here is an "entirely new class of analgesics." Still, developing a painkiller for humans could be many, many years away. "To develop a new drug, you need 10 to 15 years [and] $1 billion," Zoltan Takacs, a herpetologist and toxicologist tells National Geographic. "And you still have no guarantees."
Sources: BBC, CBS News, Discover Magazine, National Geographic
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