Sea Snail Toxin Offers Promise For Pain

Khyber writes to tell us about research out of Australia that holds out hope for chronic pain sufferers. The toxin of a sea snail, called conotoxin, has a component that has been shown to directly target pain receptors in experimental animals. Unlike essentially all existing pain relievers, conotoxin seems to suppress pain without side effects. Human trials are a year away.

Comments

Toxin...Toxic?

[jellomizer]

Isn't a Toxin Toxic to people. Or is it just Toxic to the Snail?

Re:Toxin...Toxic?

[Tyler Eaves]

It's all in the dosage. *ANYTHING* (even, say oxygen or water) is toxic if given in a high enough dose.

Re:Toxin...Toxic?

[smallfries]

Isn't a Toxin Toxic to people. Or is it just Toxic to the Snail? Another way to look at it is read what the submitter really meant. You often have
to translate slashdot stories. "Unlike essentially all existing pain relievers,
conotoxin seems to suppress pain without side effects." really means "Like all
existing drugs that haven't been through large scale trials, conotoxin appears
to be free from side-effects. The toxicity is probably dependent on the dose, the
patient, the length of usage and about a million other (currently) unknown
factors.

Re:Toxin...Toxic?

[torako]

While your Bible citation applies too, most people would say that the Rod of Asclepius is a symbol of Greek mythology (probably older than your Bible text) Wikipedia text: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_of_Asclepius The summary says:

The Rod of Asclepius is an ancient Greek symbol associated with astrology and healing the sick with medicine. It consists of a serpent entwined around a staff. Asclepius, the son of Apollo, was practitioner of medicine in ancient Greek mythology. He was instructed in medicine by the centaur Chiron also connected to the constellation Ophiuchus.

Misleading title

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Shouldn't it read "Sea Snail Toxin Offers Promise For Pain SUFFERERS"? At first I thought it was an article about some new clever torture method for Gitmo prisoners or something...

Re:Misleading title

[pilgrim23]

Human trials are still a year away? I see the research is progressing at a snail's pace...

Re:Misleading title

[sublimusasterisk]

True, but given it's a sea snail, I'd say it's coming along swimmingly.

Bitter Irony

[susano_otter]

In before "we must halt all industrial and technological advancements, to stop global warming before we lose all these wonderful natural cures!"

The bitter irony is that it's these very industrial and technological advancements that make the discovery, analysis, synthesis, mass production, and world-wide distribution at affordable prices of this painkiller possible in the first place.

It's depressing how many people demand the benefits of civilization, without accepting any of its tradeoffs.

Re:Bitter Irony

[Chris Burke]

I don't think there are actually that many people who say "we must halt all technological development".

That's usually the hyperbolic strawman of the anti-conservationist who extrapolates spending money on better alternatives to current tech and trying to use less of what we do now (e.g. drive more fuel efficient cars) into some crazy luddite back-to-nature wildlife.

Personally I think that point of view is retarded. I'm a conservationist and environmentalist because I like the benefits of civilization, and I would like for myself and as many generations of descendents as possible to be able to keep them.

One of the tradeoffs of civilization is figuring out how to make it sustainable. Our current method is not sustainable. Refusing to change because you want to keep your lifestyle is to guarantee that you lose that lifestyle.

Anyway, I think slug-slime pain killers are awesome.

Re:Bitter Irony

[rednip]

The bitter irony is that it's these very industrial and technological advancements that make the discovery, analysis, synthesis, mass production, and world-wide distribution at affordable prices of this painkiller possible in the first place.

So, you think global warming is an advancement. Personally I see it as an accounting issue; hidden costs which some people pass on to other people, in particular future generations. Perhaps the reason why the Northeast is considered so 'liberal' is that one doesn't have to go far to find a brown field. A place of dead earth, unfit for human development, left by some long gone business which was unburdened by environmental regulation. The cleanup of someone else's mess is a continuing burden, both on the treasury, and the health of people who have long ago, if ever, benefited from their creation.

At one point cities didn't have sewers or trash collection, they just threw their daily waste into the middle of the street. Often the contents of chamber pots would rain down on the pedestrians below, and the rivers became so choked with human and animal filth, that they caused plague, and misery. Eventually cities, and towns raised taxes for sewers, required trash collection, then sanitary sewers, and eventually waste treatment facilities. Today one doesn't think of these things as unnecessary, or too costly, as the benefits of these requirements obviously far outweigh the costs of not having them, yet when the laws were first developed buffoons such as yourself, fought their implementation as being too costly, and unneeded. History has proven those fools wrong, as it will you.

Ouch.

[Das Auge]

Death, the ultimate pain release...and it's good for weight loss, too.

Experimental animals?

[jonnythan]

"The toxin of a sea snail, called conotoxin, has a component that has been shown to directly target pain receptors in experimental animals." ..... What about regular animals?

Is that the next step?

Experimental animals -> regular animals -> experimental humans -> regular humans??

Wow..

[FunWithKnives]

This could be great for people like me. I suffered a lower-lumbar spinal fracture almost seven months ago. The doctors tell me that, essentially, I have to deal with chronic neck and lower back pain for the rest of my life. I take opiate-based pain medicine twice a day for it. The stuff wigs me out sometimes, though, and I slog through the day in somewhat of a fog. Not good for a college student. Hopefully this will make it to the market, and I can finally get some pain relief without getting "high".

Before anyone else chimes in..

[Khyber]

It's not the toxin itself, rather a component of the toxin that offers the pain relief. The /. editors must've edited that out, from my original entry.

Links to university release & the article in P

[PrebleNY]

here is the press brief from the university's website, includes a picture of Dr Ekberg
http://www.uq.edu.au/news/index.html?article=11048

and if you have the chops to read the study, here is a link to the abstract
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/103/45/17 030

looks like the full text is free (unless my institution's IP range has a subscriptionn and it would otherwise be locked down)

Different from ziconotide?

[Wilson_6500]

There's already an anesthetic drug out there that's based off of a conotoxin. Ziconotide, from what I can tell, is a synthetic conotoxin substance based upon omega-conotoxin derived from the cone snail. Wikipedia has an entry on it, including that it's already in use as the drug "Prialt."

I don't understand why nothing in the article even mentions this already-existing drug derived from (probably different) conotoxins.

At least one conotoxin already commercialized.

[Vellmont]

A brief look at Wikipedia indicates there's already a commercially available drug derived from conotoxin that provides relief from pain:

-conotoxin inhibits N-type voltage-dependent calcium channels. Because N-type voltage-dependent calcium channels are related to algesia (sensitivity to pain) in the nervous system, -conotoxin has an analgesic effect: the effect of -conotoxin M VII A is 100 to 1000 times that of morphine. Therefore -conotoxin M VII A is used as an analgesic drug named ziconotide; it is marketed under the brand name Prialt®.

Presumably this is a different component of conotoxin.