Good news! It looks like antivenoms are soon becoming extremely effective with this latest research.
I just blogged here about a similar new, very successful approach! I believe, these two research articles represent a major breakthrough in antivenom development.
"... for the new study, the team zeroed in on one group in particular: cobras in India, a country that bears the greatest burden of snakebite death in the world and where the current antivenom all too often falls short.
Small doses of a mixture of just five nanobodies saved mice from lethal doses of venom from India’s deadliest cobra species, even when administered to the animals half an hour after the toxins. “Mice that were paralyzed or had typical neurotoxic symptoms would revert to a completely asymptomatic state ,” ..."
"... now developed a recombinant, nanobody-based antivenom that offers broad protection against venom from geographically diverse cobra and king cobra species in India. ...
Unlike conventional antivenoms, these recombinant antibodies can be manufactured using microbial and humanised expression systems without repeatedly immunising animals like horses. Additional antibody components can be added to expand protection to other medically important snakes, allowing future recombinant antivenoms to be tailored for different regions or species. ..."
From the abstract:
"Snakebite envenoming causes more than 100,000 deaths annually, with India bearing nearly half of this burden.
Current equine plasma–derived antivenoms suffer from variable efficacy, safety concerns, and limited cross-neutralization of geographically diverse venoms.
Here, we report a rationally designed recombinant antivenom composed of five nanobodies (VHHs) that target the α-neurotoxins, cytotoxins, and phospholipases A2 prevalent in the venoms of cobra and king cobra species from India.
These VHHs were previously identified and functionally validated against homologous toxin families from African elapids.
In murine preincubation and rescue models of snakebite envenoming, the cocktail prevented mortality after injection with venom from the monocled cobra (Naja kaouthia), both king cobra species (Ophiophagus kaalinga and Ophiophagus hannah) from the Western Ghats and Northeast India, and pan-Indian populations of spectacled cobra (Naja naja).
These findings demonstrate the feasibility of developing broad-spectrum nanobody-based recombinant antivenoms with continent-wide coverage as a safe and regionally adaptable biologic for snakebite envenoming therapy."
Engineered antibodies offer broad protection against deadly cobra toxins (original news release)
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