Charles Darwin once said “I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of science.” Which is true in many ways as scientists are revolutionizing the meanings of medicine. Venom, although extremely deadly, has the possibility to heal and only recently scientists have been using it to help cure various diseases. The history, some cool facts, what some venomous animals can do to the body, what is the impact on the world does Venom based cures will and can do to the human diseases.
Venom has been used to help heal wounds for centuries, and has been used for cures dated back to B.C. Shamans were the first people in 67 B.C. and second century A.D. to use viper venom to heal battle wounds and save countless lives, Jennifer S. Holland in “The Bites That Heals”. A few centuries later Hugh Alistair Reid, an English clinician, thought that the Malayan pit viper may be useful in preventing deep-vein thrombosis, Holland. Reid discovered a snakes’ toxin had a protein called ancrod, Holland. A group of physiologists led by George Chandy at the University of California in the 1990’s found toxins have peptides called ShK, Dan Crossing in “From Toxins to Therapeutics,”. In 1968 a drug from a pit viper reached clinics in Europe as a clot busting drug. More than thirty years later, the U.S. approved the first venom-derived drug. Venom’s history led scientists to be driven to build the World Health Organization (WHO) and to find more venomous animals that could one day help cure cancer or other serious illnesses.
    It estimates that out of 5 million people bitten, 100,000 die from it each year. It may be even higher as the people that survived are lucky to have found a doctor with an antibody, researchers from the WHO found, Holland. There are more than 100 thousand venomous animals in the world that scientists have just in their databases. Venomous snakes and lizards are able to convert their venom back into harmless molecules and use them safely back into their own bodies, Christine HSU “Lethal Snake Venom May Hold Cancer, Diabetes Cure,”.Scientists are trying to find out how snakes and lizards are able to convert venom into harmless molecules and then use that information for medicine. All these facts are a small fraction of what scientists have found about what snakes and lizards could do to the body to cure cancer and other serious illness.
    Each venomous animal has a part in the ability to aid cancer and seriousness illnesses. Certain scorpions for example the Deathstalker a neurotoxin that can attach to the surface cancer cells in the brain, Holland “The bite that heals,”. Chlorotoxin, and amino acid found in Deathstalker have been shown to slow down the cancer’s spread, by blocking narrow channels in the brain says Kat Meduski “Killer animals, Life saving cures, Why venom is good for you,”. The deathstalker scorpion is one of many dangerous but helpful animals to help the world find a cure. 
    There are plenty of fish in the sea, various of them are venomous to survive but sometimes humans get in their way to find food and get hurt. Toxin from the pufferfish have been used to help treat chronic pain, by Claire Groden in “Toxins turning into potion: Toxins turning into life saving drugs,”. The fatal tetrodotoxin disarrays the nervous system and can cause catastrophic paralysis to the certain muscles that control breathing and heart rate explains Groden. Kineta a Seattle-based biotechnology company is establishing a treatment based on toxins of a sea anemone for patients with autoimmune diseases. Multiple sclerosis, in which the body’s immune cells mistakenly attack its own healthy cells, Groden. Sea anemone’s are used to help for many things but their venom, can if not used properly, will kill a person if not gotten to the doctor in time.
    There are thousands of species of frogs in the world and variety of them are venomous that could and will eventually help save lives. “Christopher Shaw of Queen’s University at Belfast says “Frog’s anti-angiogenic properties could prove in treating these diseases, although researchers have to work fast,” explains Groden. The wax monkey frog’s venom has shown to control blood vessel growth; which could be useful in starving cancer cells Gorden. Scientists have found that fire-bellied toads sweat is laced with venom which could eventually help heal wounds Groden. Venomous frogs to venomous toads they are different but are used for the same cause. To help the human race and find cures for deadly diseases that are all over the world.
     Snakes are all over the world and more are found every few years, some of them are found to have peptides that could have a stronger effect than morphine or pain killers. Professor Manjunatha Kini who is also is developing a compound which could be up to twenty to two hundred times more potent than the regular morphine made up of King cobra venom. “The king cobra poison lacks the addictive properties of that painkiller and others like it currently on the market,” found in the paper of Groden. He devote a drug on animals such as mice, which withstand almost twice the thermal pain of normal animals that have not taken the drug; the professor hopes the drug goes on trial with humans in the next year in Groden. At the National Center of Scientific Research (CRNS) researchers have found two peptides isolated in the venom of the Black mamba that block neuronal acid-sensing ion channels (ASICs), plays a key role in the pain pathway in the human body Cossing. Patients of heart disease are grateful to the eastern green mamba, a deadly African tree snake. The eastern green mamba’s venom diminishes its victims’ nerve and blood circulation. Which it doesn’t just help lower blood pressure and reduce fibrosis in a failing heart, but in the kidneys from an overload of salt and water explains Holland. Still called the deadliest snake in the world, the black mamba is now helping scientists find how their venom blocks the pain pathway to the brain, and with that could help patients in surgery to not feel as much pain as they would with painkillers.
    Lots of people judge lizards of all kinds like the Gila monster but those lizards could be the key to helping fight everyday illnesses like diabetes. Scientists have found the Gila monsters eat only three big meals a year than save that fat in its tail, but what is interesting is that their blood sugar stays stable through the whole year Meduski. “In 1992 an endocrinologist named John Eng at the Bronx/James J. Peters VA Medical Center in New York identified a component in Gila venom that controls blood sugar and even reduces appetite,” found in Holland. A drug that is made for diabetes, called Byetta synthesizes an enzyme found in Gila spit Meduski. Spit from a lizard is being researched for a cure for diabetes.
What would people think when they would hear that venom is being used for? Scientists from all over the world are discovering and finding new ways to help cure cancer or other serious illnesses. A Toxinologist and a herpetologist named Takacs, recently left the University of Chicago to launch the world’s first Toxin bank, Holland. A tetrodotoxin (TTX) from a pufferfish have revealed details about the way cells communicate. There are reasons why scientists can’t just put venom in a drug and then put it on the market. It must be tested to see what it would do to the human body it needs to put at a molecular level and to withstand the human digestive system by Holland. Snakes like the copperhead rattlesnake venom prevents the blood disks from sticking together, scientists are using that to stop the prevention of cancer says Holland. People don’t see the good in the venomous animals they just kill them before even thinking of what kind of disease it could help cure.
       The history, the facts, some of the well known venomous animals, and the impact they will have on the scientific evolution of medicine. As Charles Darwin once said run beyond the bounds of science which is true as scientists are learning more about how venom can eventually do more than help cure cancer or other serious illnesses but lets just start with this. But they need to take venom from various animals before they become endangered or soon to become extinct by the rise of human population.