Official News - page 8

REAL LIFE NEWS: SNAIL VENOM IS BETTER THAN MORPHINE

Patients with really serious and chronic pain are often given morphine, which makes them feel a whole lot better but has the nasty side-effect of being addictive. Now there's a new painkiller called Prialt, just launched in Britain, which is a thousand times more powerful than morphine but non-addictive. But although it is a synthetic drug made in a laboratory, it has a surprising origin - it's based on the venom from a deadly sea snail.

The two-inch long magician's cone snail (Comus magus) uses the venom to capture its prey. It shoots thin, worm-like tubes into passing fish, then injects its venom. The fish is paralysed and the snail then eats it whole. Lovely!

Researchers broke the venom down into short chains of amino acids, and identified which of them stopped nerve cells from sending signals to the brain. They were then able to synthesise a drug which replicated the effect in humans.

The drug will be given to patients with chronic, long-term pain for whom other methods of pain relief have failed.

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