Global & Disaster Medicine

Nanoparticles and Snakebites

October 15th, 2018

NYT

Snakes kill or cripple 500,000 people a year

“……Dr. Shea’s lab is creating hydrogel nanoparticles coated with polymers — the building blocks of plastics — small enough to attach to proteins.

While screening them against common venoms, he isolated some nanoparticles that bind with and neutralize two poisons produced by snakes like cobras, kraits, coral snakes, sea snakes and mambas.

José María Gutiérrez, a venom specialist at the University of Costa Rica, injected dozens of mice with the venom of the black-necked spitting cobra. He found that Dr. Shea’s nanoparticles significantly reduced tissue damage in the mice. Importantly, the nanoparticles did not appear to interfere with normal proteins or to trigger dangerous allergic reactions……”


O’Brien J, Lee S-H, Gutiérrez JM, Shea KJ (2018) Engineered nanoparticles bind elapid snake venom toxins and inhibit venom-induced dermonecrosis. PLoS Negl Trop Dis 12(10): e0006736. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0006736

 

This entry was posted on Monday, October 15th, 2018 at 9:55 am and is filed under Snake envenomation .
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