The Deadly Mamba as a Lifesaver
Scientists Study New Drug Based on African Snake's Venom for Treating Heart Failure While Saving Kidneys
By RON WINSLOW
WSJ
Mother Nature has provided a rich source of raw materials for a host of important drugs: aspirin comes from willow tree bark; the blood pressure drug captopril from the venom of a pit viper; warfarin, the widely used blood thinner, was derived from moldy sweet clover.
Now researchers think that desperately ill heart failure patients may find relief with the help of the eastern green mamba snake.
A drug based in part on a hormone found in the venom of the eastern green mamba snake may protect the kidneys of heart failure patients.
That's the hope, at least, of John Burnett, a heart failure expert at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. He and his colleagues have fashioned an experimental drug based in part on the venom of the snake, a tree-dwelling relative of the cobra that is found in eastern Africa.
The drug is designed to help solve a vexing medical dilemma in treating patients with acute heart failure: how to provide effective relief to the heart without hurting the kidneys. A 40-patient midstage, or phase 2, clinical trial of the drug, called CD-NP, is currently enrolling patients to get an initial read on the compound's safety and ability to relieve symptoms in heart failure patients. Plenty of work remains to determine if the drug is effective and whether it will make it to the market.
In its acute stage, heart failure—the progressive weakening of the heart's ability to pump blood to rest of the body—is the leading cause of death among the elderly and one of medicine's most debilitating and costly conditions. It results in more than 1 million hospital admissions annually in the U.S. It is marked by accumulation of fluid in the heart and lungs that causes pressure to build up in the heart and leaves patients gasping for breath and with the sensation they are drowning.
(More here.)
By RON WINSLOW
WSJ
Mother Nature has provided a rich source of raw materials for a host of important drugs: aspirin comes from willow tree bark; the blood pressure drug captopril from the venom of a pit viper; warfarin, the widely used blood thinner, was derived from moldy sweet clover.
Now researchers think that desperately ill heart failure patients may find relief with the help of the eastern green mamba snake.
A drug based in part on a hormone found in the venom of the eastern green mamba snake may protect the kidneys of heart failure patients.
That's the hope, at least, of John Burnett, a heart failure expert at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. He and his colleagues have fashioned an experimental drug based in part on the venom of the snake, a tree-dwelling relative of the cobra that is found in eastern Africa.
The drug is designed to help solve a vexing medical dilemma in treating patients with acute heart failure: how to provide effective relief to the heart without hurting the kidneys. A 40-patient midstage, or phase 2, clinical trial of the drug, called CD-NP, is currently enrolling patients to get an initial read on the compound's safety and ability to relieve symptoms in heart failure patients. Plenty of work remains to determine if the drug is effective and whether it will make it to the market.
In its acute stage, heart failure—the progressive weakening of the heart's ability to pump blood to rest of the body—is the leading cause of death among the elderly and one of medicine's most debilitating and costly conditions. It results in more than 1 million hospital admissions annually in the U.S. It is marked by accumulation of fluid in the heart and lungs that causes pressure to build up in the heart and leaves patients gasping for breath and with the sensation they are drowning.
(More here.)
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