Venomous cures

Humans not only rely on healthy ecosystems for life-sustaining processes such as water filtration and oxygen production, but recent studies have demonstrated that nature is a veritable pharmacy with potential cures for allergies and disease just waiting to be discovered.

It seems our venomous creatures may hold the key to such discoveries – especially those living in sub-zero temperatures.

Venom expert, Dr Bryan Fry, of the University of Melbourne’s Bio 21 Institute, has long believed in nature’s huge medicinal potential, living by the motto, ‘Take something that kills and make it something that heals’.

According to Dr Fry, it is the potent and target-specific nature of venom that has raised the interest of scientists looking to tap into one of nature’s many valuable resources.

“Toxins that have already been designed in nature have the unusual combination of precise specificity and extreme potency – characteristics that make them particularly amenable for use as leads in drug design,” Dr Fry says.

Cone shell venom has been harnessed and transformed into a non-addictive pain killer for humans, gila monster venom was shown to stimulate insulin production and is therefore commonly used to treat type-two diabetes and, viper venom is a key ingredient in ACE inhibitor drugs to treat high blood pressure.

Dr Fry explains that a major limitation of the study of venom proteins has been the very narrow species range examined. As a result, several major animal groups with known or suspected venom systems have remained largely unexplored.

“If we want to discover new potential drugs from venom, the best place to search will be unique creatures that haven’t been thoroughly studied,” he says.

Dr Fry was naturally drawn to the largely unexplored depths of the Antarctic oceans, where alien species are continuously being discovered and venomous creatures such as octopuses are known to live.

Scientists were baffled at the thought that venomous animals could have adapted their venom to have an effect in sub-zero temperatures, where most venoms would lose their function.

As part of the Australian Antarctic Division’s funding scheme, Dr Fry led a team of international researchers from the University of Melbourne, the Norwegian University of Technology and Science and the University of Hamburg on an expedition to Antarctica to gain an insight into the mysterious Antarctic octopus venom.

They managed to collect venom from Antarctic octopuses for the first time ever and also revealed the existence of four new species of octopus in the process.

 “This is the first study that has collected Antarctic octopus venom and confirmed that these creatures have adapted it to work in sub zero temperatures – the next step is to work out what biochemical tricks they have used,” he says.

Dr Fry says the venom analysis revealed that Antarctic octopus venom harbours a range of toxins, two of which had not previously been detected.

 “We have discovered new small proteins in the venom that are entirely unlike anything else previously characterised, which have very intriguing activities – these are potentially useful in drug design, but more will be revealed as the study continues,” he says.

The Antarctic octopus venom study forms part of a large overall goal to understand the evolution of venom systems, which is remarkably poorly understood despite its biological uniqueness and medical importance, Dr Fry says.

“Venom systems are key evolutionary innovations that are widespread across the animal kingdom – every type of animal has at least one venomous lineage,” he says.

In addition to the extensively studied venomous creatures such as snakes, scorpions and spiders, other venomous animals include octopuses, sea anemones, starfish, jellyfish, sea snails, centipedes, fish, lizards and even some mammals including lorises, platypus and shrews.

Dr Fry explains that understanding the biochemical, ecological, morphological and pharmacological diversity of venoms across the animal kingdom will provide new insight into the evolution of venom systems and the medical importance of the associated toxins.

His team is focusing on the neglected species, like Antarctic octopuses. He explains that the most divergent venoms are going to have unique compounds and therefore the most likely to be useful as therapeutics.

“I am trying to come up with a general theory of venom evolution by comparing all different animals that have venom and what strategies they have employed,” Dr Fry says.

“An understanding of the structure and mode of action of venom found in all animals will help design drugs for conditions like pain management, allergies and cancer.”

Dr Fry’s broad research highlights the importance of valuing our natural resources.

“The inherent beauty of venom research is that you can’t predict where the next wonder drug is going to come from, so we need to conserve all of our amazing animals,” he says.