Two examples show how animal venom has led to major human drugs. Captopril, the first FDA-approved ACE inhibitor for high blood pressure and heart failure, was developed from a compound isolated from the venom of a South American pit viper, which naturally drops a victim's blood pressure to fatal levels. Exenatide, a compound found in Gila monster saliva, became the basis for GLP-1 receptor agonist drugs used for type 2 diabetes, including a modified version now used in Ozempic.
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The Gila monster's venom compound is described as helping it maintain stable blood sugar despite eating only a few large meals per year, which is why researchers investigated it for diabetes treatment.
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The pit viper venom compound was diluted and titrated by pharmacologists to bring blood pressure down to healthy levels rather than lethal ones.
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48:17>> This came from the South American pit viper. It's an active compound that was isolated from the venom of this snake and it's the first FDA approved ACE inhibitor that revolutionized the treatment of high blood pressure and heart failure and it saved millions of human lives. Effectively, the snake has evolved a way to drop the blood pressure of its victims. That's how it kills people. Okay. When it bites things like the venom drops the blood pressure and then the thing is dead. >> Yeah. because it can't get enough blood to >> right yeah the heart stops I mean it's just yeah obvious right um so then modern pharmacology diluted the thing
48:58and titrated it to the point where it's just enough >> to drop the blood pressure to healthy levels right I mean obviously there was more into it but that's effectively what happened we figured it out in the venom and then we're like okay we can use this compound things that look like this compound to then create all of the um high blood pressure drugs that we see today. >> This also goes back to this idea of looking at things that feel totally orthogonal or unrelated to problems we're trying to solve >> are actually the location of the solution sometimes. Yeah. >> And this is a perfect example. Like who knew watching the crocodile hunter and being inspired by snake venom as a child inspired some researcher to go and
49:40research that venom and then that ended up being a cure to cardiovascular disease. >> Yeah. I mean the next one is even crazier, dude. The next one is exanide which comes from the Giller Monster lizard saliva. This is how we get GLP1s. This is how we get ompic. >> Oh my goodness. >> Is someone was messing around with a Gillam monster venom and was like, "Hey,
Evolutionary BiologyNeurobiologyPharmacologyRegenerative Medicine