Meet Tim Friede, a self-taught venom expert who has voluntarily injected himself with snake venom 856 times over 18 years. His extreme hobby led scientists to create the most widely effective snake antivenom on record.
Friede’s journey began when he started collecting pet snakes as a child and experimented with deliberately envenoming himself by milking his pets and injecting their diluted venom repeatedly. After receiving two separate cobra bites, which almost killed him, Friede doubled down on his self-envenomation routine.
Despite the risks, Friede’s immune system developed a unique response to the snake venoms, producing antibodies that protected him from the toxic bites. His YouTube videos, documenting his experiments, caught the attention of Jacob Glanville, an immunologist and CEO of biotech company Centivax.
Glanville and his team used Friede’s hyperimmune antibodies to create an antivenom that protected mice from 19 different snake species, including those listed as category 1 and 2 by the World Health Organization. This breakthrough is a significant improvement over traditional antivenoms, which are specific to a single snake species.
The new antivenom consists of two types of antibodies isolated from Friede’s blood: LNX-D09 and SNX-B03. The first type provided protection against six species, while the second type offered partial protection against all 19 species tested.
Glanville aims to develop a universal antivenom that can protect anyone from any snake species. While rigorous clinical testing is needed before human trials begin, researchers plan to conduct field trials on snake-bitten dogs in Australia.
Source: https://www.sciencealert.com/after-856-snake-bites-mans-blood-could-unlock-universal-antivenom