The next generation of antivenoms is almost here

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."

ScienceAdviser

Engineered antibodies offer broad protection against deadly cobra toxins (original news release)

Oligoclonal nanobody-based recombinant antivenom protects mice challenged with venom from cobras and king cobras from India (no public access)

Nigeria’s Fatal Antivenom Shortfall. Really!

Maybe it is time to systematically and routinely kill some of these snakes and destroy their nesting places!

How about eradication of dangerous snakes?

"The death of a high-profile Nigerian singer from a snakebite has ignited widespread outrage over the country’s inadequate supply of antivenom and the need for a national snakebite strategy ..."

Global Health NOW: Health Crisis in Gaza; and Supporting Breastfeeding Mothers in South Africa

Deadly serpents may be riding railcars in India

Amazing stuff! Hitch a ride!

"Some king cobras, the longest venomous snakes in the world, may be traveling on trains in India. The inadvertent hitchhiking appears to be transporting these deadly snakes into places they don’t normally occur, raising the risk of harm to people and the snakes as well. ...

The new study of dispersal via railway travel—the first such analysis for snakes—was undertaken ... in the state of Goa, where the Western Ghats king cobra lives primarily in forests. Parmar compiled reports on cobra rescues spanning 22 years, which revealed that these serpents had been found in five locations with entirely unsuitable lowland habitat; all were along or within a few hundred meters of railway tracks. Parmar and colleagues suspect the snakes, which are agile climbers, slip onto freight trains when they stop in the cobra’s prime habitat, perhaps on the hunt for rodents, lizards, or other snakes attracted to the train’s edible cargo. ..."

From the abstract:

"We provide the first detailed documentation on the distribution and natural history of the Western Ghats King Cobra, Ophiophagus kaalinga, in Goa State, India, and its interesting apparent interaction with railway infrastructure, which may influence its distribution.

The combination of rescue records, verified sightings, local reports, and historical data allowed us to document a total of 47 georeferenced localities where O. kaalinga has been found in the state, with 18 localities in North Goa District and 29 in South Goa District. These data inform our study of the Goa Gap, a biologically significant region without obvious physical characteristics, and assess the suitability of this area for king cobras.

Using a series of climate and vegetation variables, we were able to model the potential distribution of the species in Goa. It is noteworthy that the five king cobra records that fall along busy railway corridors had the lowest predicted probability, as predicted by our model. Combined with recent reports of snakes on trains in India and of O. kaalinga in a rail yard, entirely unsuitable reptile habitats, we propose the hypothesis that snakes, king cobras included, may inadvertently expand their ranges by accidental transport on trains."

ScienceAdviser

Snakes on a train? Deadly reptiles may be hopping railcars in India

Snakes on Trains: Railways May Sway Goa's King Cobra Distribution (open access)

Fig. 1 Predicted distribution of the Western Ghats King Cobra, Ophiophagus kaalinga, in Goa State, India.

First female winner of Florida Python Challenge reflects on historic victory

She is a charm!

Woman Wins 2025 Florida Python Challenge After Removing More Invasive Snakes Than Anyone Else (total of 60)

I bet it was the tattoo on her arm that charmed the pythons! Or was it the perfume she was wearing? Just kidding! 😊

If one person can catch 60 pythons in 10 days, then the infestation of pythons in Florida seems to be quite serious!

"

• A woman has won the 2025 Florida Python Challenge's grand prize after removing 60 invasive snakes from the Everglades
• Taylor Stanberry came out victorious after competing with 934 participants from 30 states and Canada to see who could remove the most snakes from the Florida Everglades in 10 days

...

A woman who removed 60 invasive pythons from South Florida in just 10 days is now $10,000 richer.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission announced the winner of its annual Florida Python Challenge on Wednesday, Aug. 13, after the event removed a record 294 invasive Burmese pythons from the wild. ..."

Who Won the Florida Python Challenge? Woman Removes the Most Snakes "A total of 934 participants from 30 states and Canada took part in the annual challenge this year"

Credits: The Flyover

Taylor Stanberry.

Florida deploys robotic rabbits to remove invasive pythons from Everglades

Good news!

Organ-on-a-chip blood vessels reveal how snake venom destroys capillaries

Good news! Amazing stuff! 

Besides bloodsuckers, snakes might be another species where humans may want to expedite extinction in nature.

"Snakebites kill more than a hundred thousand people every year and maim countless more. ...

The capillary mimics they developed are the latest in ‘organ-on-a-chip’ technology. In a nutshell, cells are grown in special microfluidic devices to create 3D tubes that behave like small blood vessels. Researchers could then pump venom-laced fluid through these mini-tubes and watch what happens to the cells. And it wasn’t pretty: High doses of venom caused entire chunks of vessel wall to die and wither away. ..."

From the abstract:

"Snakebite envenomation is a major public health issue which causes severe morbidity and mortality, affecting millions of people annually. Of a diverse range of clinical manifestations, local and systemic haemorrhage are of particular relevance, as this may result in ischemia, organ failure and even cardiovascular shock. Thus far, in vitro studies have failed to recapitulate the haemorrhagic effects observed in vivo. Here, we present an organ-on-a-chip approach to investigate the effects of four different snake venoms on a perfused microfluidic blood vessel model. We assess the effect of the venoms of four snake species on epithelial barrier function, cell viability, and contraction/delamination. Our findings reveal two different mechanisms by which the microvasculature is being affected, either by disruption of the endothelial cell membrane or by delamination of the endothelial cell monolayer from its matrix. The use of our blood vessel model may shed light on the key mechanisms by which tissue-damaging venoms exert their effects on the capillary vessels, which could be helpful for the development of effective treatments against snakebites."

ScienceAdvisor

Using organ-on-a-chip technology to study haemorrhagic activities of snake venoms on endothelial tubules (open access)

Figure 7 Schematic overview showing the mechanisms by which tissue-damaging toxins exert their effects

How Dice snakes fake their own gory deaths

What a bizarre behavior! That some  animals fake death to escape predators has been known for a long time.

"Aspiring actors in need of inspiration for their next dramatic death scene needn’t look any further than dice snakes (Natrix tessellate). The serpents fake their own deaths to avoid predators.

In a bizarre new finding, researchers have discovered dice snakes include dramatic practical effects in their charade such as smearing themselves with faeces and oozing blood from their mouths. Snakes which do this are more effective actors and spend less time feigning death overall. ..."

From the abstract:

"Predation exerts a significant selection pressure on prey, shaping a multitude of traits that serve as antipredator defences. In turn, natural selection could favour combinations of antipredator defences with synergistic effects that enhance prey survival. An especially interesting antipredator defence is death feigning (DF), present in a wide variety of taxa and usually characterized by the prey lying motionless often along with defaecation, musking and autohaemorrhaging (AH). All these aspects of the DF display should work in conjunction with one another, intensifying the overall effect of the display and in turn facilitating quicker escape. To confirm this hypothesis, we tested 263 dice snakes (Natrix tessellata) directly in the field. We noted the occurrence of smearing faeces, musk and AH, and we measured the duration of DF, expecting to see a negative association between the occurrence of these behaviours and the duration of DF. Our results affirm our hypothesis: dice snakes that smeared themselves in musk and faeces prior to DF and had AH during DF spent significantly less time in DF. Our results highlight the functional integration of antipredator behaviours across different phases of predator–prey interactions, emphasizing the need for future research to prioritize studying the sequential display of behaviours."

Dice snakes fake their own gory deaths

Synergistic effects of musking and autohaemorrhaging on the duration of death feigning in dice snakes (Natrix tessellata) (no public access)

11 non-venomous snakes you want in your backyard in Houston. Really!

What if I mistake a venomous with a non-venomous snake? I am not an expert in reptiles.

11 non-venomous snakes you want in your backyard

Nature journal: More People Die From Venomous Snakebites Each Year Than Have Ever Died from Ebola or any other neglected tropical disease

What a nonsensical headline about a serious subject! 

Nature journal even goes so far to call venomous snakebites a tropical disease. How curious/ridiculous is that!

Do you know how many people died from Ebola last year? 😊

The real problem is not so much dying from a venomous snake bite, but surviving with very serious disabilities.

"... Venomous snakes bite about 5,000 people a year in Colombia; between 20 and 40 of those bitten die from their injuries. And although Colombia has the ability to produce and distribute antivenom—the antidote for venomous snakebites—about 20 percent of the victims who need antivenom don’t receive it. Globally as many as 2.7 million people are envenomed by snakes every year. Of these, up to 400,000 are permanently disabled, and estimates suggest that 81,000 to 138,000 die. Venomous snakebites may receive less attention from health organizations than contagious viruses and bacterial infections, but their toxic effects make them one of the deadliest neglected tropical diseases. ..."

More People Die From Venomous Snakebites Each Year Than Have Ever Died from Ebola In low- and middle-income nations, snakebite envenoming is more deadly than almost any other neglected tropical disease.

Female Rattlesnake Wrangler Removes 20 SNAKES from Arizona Garage

Incredible! She is quite a charmer!