• kevincox@lemmy.ml
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    3 months ago

    This article really keeps getting better and better.

    • ‘Unparalleled’ snake antivenom made from man bitten 200 times
    • In total, Mr Friede has endured more than 200 bites and more than 700 injections of venom he prepared from some of the world’s deadliest snakes
    • He initially wanted to build up his immunity to protect himself when handling snakes, documenting his exploits on YouTube.
    • he had “completely screwed up” early on when two cobra bites in quick succession left him in a coma
    • I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to lose a finger. I didn’t want to miss work
    • It just became a lifestyle
  • Kyrgizion@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I’ve been bitten by mildly venomous snakes before. It’s definitely not pleasant, but to be honest, an irate housecat would do a lot more damage. It’s more like a bee sting. Still, props to this guy and the scientists who worked to get this result.

  • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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    3 months ago

    I feel like all the coverage of this leaves out a massive gaping logical hole.

    Like anti-venom / anti-bodies are produced by injecting a horse with venom and then collecting the anti-bodies it produces as a result.

    In this situation our man Tim is that horse, and he had to inject himself with 900 different venom injections to produce these broad anti-bodies.

    Is the plan going forward, to give horses 900 different venom injections to try and recreate this? Is there a synthetic way of making a known anti-body that they’re not mentioning? If there is, then why are we still injecting horses with so much snake venom?

    • GingaNinga@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      The immune system is super complicated but essentially when an animal or person are exposed to some sort of substance white blood cells sample that compound and create an antibody that is tailored to bind and neutralize it. Different substances range in their ability to induce this response and it often takes repeat exposures to get the titre to high enough levels. So one way or another some sort of animal needs to be exposed to the venom whether it be horse, goat or mouse and we would harvest the antibody for use in emergency situations where we need to immediately reverse the effects of a snake bite.

      Another way would be to do this in cell culture but I’m not quite sure how that works, I think thats easier to do when the proteins are directly coded for like insulin or something. You could probably harvest B cell clones that produce the antibody to the venom, make them immortal and harvest it that way but I’m less familiar with that sort of wok so I can’t really comment further.

      • serenissi@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Why the antibodies can’t be analyzed and chemically synthesized in lab? I’m a total noob in immunology but haven’t we got quite good at synthesizing organic stuff with say custom bacteria?

        • GingaNinga@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          To my knowledge its easy to do this with proteins that are directly coded for in our genes. For example there is a gene for insulin so we can clip it, transfect it into a cell culture and get those cells to crank out a bunch of insulin that we can extract, purify and make into a usable, stable product. The problem with antibodies is that we need to be exposed to an antigen capable of stimulating the development of the corresponding antibody. There is a very complicated set of receptors that capture the antigen, internalize and process it to present it to cells that will modify a whole bunch stuff (Thats the limit of my personal knowledge) to generate an antibody capable of neutralizing that substance. In short you still need a living being with some sort of immune system capable of processing that compound and generating an antibody to it, its unbelievably complicated. The good news is once that cell starts cranking out antibody it starts to clone itself so we can extract it, make a hybridoma (fuze the antibody-producing cell from a live animal with immortal cancer cells to create an immortal hybrid that cranks out the desired antibody) then we can continue with the process in cell culture as per usual. Its just cheaper and easier to use live animals with high titre to that antibody. Source: I’ve taken a couple immunology courses and my lab specializes in immunohistochemistry so I’m quite familiar with antigen/antibody interactions but not so much with antibody production.

  • PlasticExistence@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Not one mention of how this guy got his hands on so many different snake venoms in order to acquire this broad immunity. Interesting dude nonetheless.