Our ailing hearts may someday thank poisonous spiders. Australian scientists are about to begin clinical trials of a heart attack drug originally derived from the venom of the Kigali funnel spider.
Although there are now several types of drugs that can prevent or treat heart disease, cardiovascular disease remains the number one leading cause of death. Therefore, new treatments that can protect our hearts remain valuable. Researchers from the University of Queensland and elsewhere have identified one such candidate, a protein called Hi1a, first isolated from a poisonous species of funnel spider found on Australia’s Kugari Island (formerly known as Fraser Island). I think I have discovered.
It is believed that these spiders have the following properties: the deadliest and most complex To date, venoms have been discovered in spiders, but only a handful of the 3,000 proteins found in spider venom are considered completely lethal to humans, and others such as Hi1a Proteins have the potential to be put to practical use. team is faster animal research We found evidence that Hi1a can protect the heart when it is starved of oxygen during a heart attack. It appears to do so by blocking a signal that effectively causes heart cells to self-terminate when there is no more oxygen around them. The same properties can also be exploited to improve donor heart survival during organ retrieval.
After receiving significant funding from the Australian Government’s Medical Research Future Fund, researchers are now poised to begin clinical trials of Hi1a in heart attacks and heart donations, which will last for four years. It is scheduled to be implemented.
Glenn King, a researcher at the University of Queensland’s Institute of Molecular Research, said: “This MRFF funding will enable human clinical trials to test a miniaturized version of Hi1a as a heart attack treatment and protect donor hearts during the retrieval process. We will be able to implement it.” In bioscience, statement From university. “If successful, this would improve patient survival and quality of life, dramatically expand the pool of donor hearts available for transplantation, and significantly reduce healthcare costs.”
Many promising drug candidates fail to reach their potential in human trials because they are not as effective as expected in humans, or are not as safe or tolerable as previous research suggested. Not yet. So it will take some time to find out if Hi1a is real or not. But researchers are generally hopeful about the future of deriving new treatments from animal toxins. poisonous substance. For example, just last year, Brazilian scientists began a Phase II human clinical trial testing a drug derived from spider venom as a treatment for erectile dysfunction. King and his team also hope Hi1a could be used to treat stroke and stroke. certain types of epilepsy.
So while spider venom may not give anyone superpowers, it could be a rich source of new and important medicine.
