Deathly spider venom used to create heart attack drug
Scientists in Australia are about to begin a clinical trial for a heart attack medication that was originally derived from the venom of the K’gari funnel web spider. Scientists in Australia will soon begin a trial of a medication for heart attacks that was originally developed from the venom produced by the K’gari spiral web spider. Any new treatment that protects our hearts is still worth it. Researchers from the University of Queensland, among others, believe they’ve found a promising candidate. It was originally isolated from a funnel spider species found on Australia’s K’gari Island (formerly known by the name Fraser Island), a protein named Hi1a. Researchers have found that the Hi1a protein can protect a heart from being deprived oxygen during a cardiac attack. This appears to be done by blocking the signals that would cause heart cells in an oxygen-free environment to self-terminate. That same attribute could also be used to improve the survivability of donor hearts during organ retrieval.
After having obtained substantial funding from the Australian government’s Medical Research Future Fund, the researchers are now ready to start a clinical trial of Hi1a for heart attacks and heart donation, which is expected to run for four years.
“This MRFF funding will enable us to undertake human clinical trials to test a miniaturized version of Hi1a as a drug to treat heart attack and protect donor hearts during the retrieval process,” said Glenn King, a researcher at the University of Queensland’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience, in a statement from the university. “If successful, it will improve patient survival and quality of life, dramatically expand the pool of donor hearts available for transplantation, and significantly reduce healthcare costs.
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Many promising drug candidates have failed to live up to their potential in human trials, either because they’re not as effective as hoped in people or because they’re not as safe and tolerable as earlier studies suggested they would be. It will take some time before we know if Hi1a really works. Researchers are optimistic about the future, and the ability to develop new treatments using the venoms of animals. This field is known as venomics. Scientists in Brazil, for example, began a phase II human trial last year testing their spider-venom-derived drugs as a treatment to treat erection problems. King and his team are also hoping that Hi1a can be used to treat epilepsy and strokes.
