Millions of people are bitten by snakes each year worldwide. Around 81,000 to 140,000 deaths are reported due to snake bites, and most incidents would have been preventable if there had been safe and effective antivenoms. Humans are reportedly closer to achieving that.
Universal Antivenom Closer to Reality
When bitten by a snake, humans need antivenom. However, existing antivenoms are species-specific, meaning they have to use the right antivenom for the snake that bit them to fight the neurotoxin. Unfortunately, antivenoms for some venomous snakes do not exist.
However, Stuart Ainsworth and Camille Abada suggested that humans are closer to developing a "universal antivenom." The antivenom will work for any species of snake worldwide. They created an antibody in a laboratory capable of neutralizing a neurotoxic, or poison that affects the neurological system, in the venom of numerous snake species worldwide.
Anti-toxin antibodies are the active components of antivenoms. Horses are given tiny injections of snake venom to produce them, and the antibodies are then extracted. This has been the same process for creating antivenom for over a century, yet it has significant disadvantages.
Not only are antivenoms species-specific, but they are also weak, meaning you need a lot of them to offset the venom from a bite.
Additionally, since antivenoms are derived from horses, there's a good chance that using one will cause serious adverse effects since your immune system will recognize and react to the "foreign" horse antibodies in the bloodstream.
Human cancer and autoimmune diseases are frequently treated with antibodies produced in the lab using genetically engineered cells. It has long been hoped that the technique utilized to create these antibodies may also be employed to develop antivenom, which would eventually replace conventional antivenoms and address many of the problems present antivenoms have.
It is possible for the antibodies in artificially produced antivenoms to be "humanized," a technique that deceives your immune system into believing that alien antibodies are your own. This may lessen the frequency of serious adverse effects that antivenoms derived from horses frequently experience.
Snake Evolution
In related news, snakes are reportedly great at evolution. They evolve three times faster than lizards, also known for their evolution mechanisms.
About 100 million years ago, a group of lizards broke apart to become a species of legless lizards. These newly formed crawling reptiles also developed flexible heads to swallow their prey whole as they evolved to become skilled hunters. The evolution resulted in snakes, which are closely related to lizards.
The diversity of snake species grew to the point where there are around 4,000 types of snakes today. The researchers also observed notable changes in the snakes' perceptions, eating patterns, and locomotion.
When biologists examine the different snake species today, this becomes clear. There are venomous snakes that can kill people, and there are pythons with bodies so strong that they can suffocate their prey before swallowing it whole with their mouth's flexible ligaments.
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