Most people would avoid snake venom at any cost, but Tim Friede is not your average person. Over the past 20 years, the former truck mechanic has received over 200 snake bites and injected himself with venom cocktails over 700 times. Now, his blood could lead scientists to a breakthrough universal antivenom, which could help the 1.8 to 2.7 million people bitten by venomous snakes every year.
But why did Friede start injecting himself with snake venom in the first place? It all started with his own snake collection, his desire to keep himself safe, and a bit of curiosity. Initially, Friede documented his work on YouTube and began injecting himself with small amounts of venom. He then slowly increased the dosage to build up immunity and allowed the snake to bite him.
“At first, it was very scary,” Friede tells NBC News. “But the more you do it, the better you get at it, the more calm you become with it.”
Over the years, he continued to build up immunities to a wide variety of deadly snake venoms, and eventually, he began reaching out to scientists to see if anyone would be interested in studying his blood. While Friede’s “experiment” is certainly not recommended, it did eventually lead him to connect with Dr. Jacob Glanville, chief executive of biotech company Centivax, and Columbia University Structural Vaccinologist Professor Peter Kwong.
“Oh, wow, this is very unusual,” Kwong recalls thinking when hearing about Friede. “We had a very special individual with amazing antibodies that he created over 18 years.”
In a study published in Cell, Dr. Glanville and a team of researchers shared their findings when examining Friede’s blood. Specifically, they identified two antibodies that neutralize a wide range of snake venoms. While the research is early—and has only been tested on mice—there is hope that Friede’s blood can lead to a broad antivenom.
With over 100,000 deaths a year, and nearly three times as many paralyzations and amputations caused by snake bites, this is promising news. However, researchers caution that there is still a lot of work to do, with human trials bound to take place many years in the future. For now, the treatment appears effective against the group of snakes that include mambas and cobras, which use neurotoxins to paralyze victims, but not against vipers such as rattlers, which use hemotoxins to attack the blood.
Still, it’s a big step forward given that the toxins in venom vary from species to species. The ability to have one antivenom that covers a wide spectrum of snakes would go a long way in saving lives.
Professor Kwong also remains hopeful that they’ll eventually be able to cover all snakes in one antivenom or, at worst, develop two antivenoms that would cover both families of venomous snakes. He says, “I think in the next 10 or 15 years we’ll have something effective against each one of those toxin classes.”
For Friede, who is now Centivax’s director of herpetology, the results confirm that his initial experiment was for the greater good. “I just kept pushing and pushing and pushing as hard as I could push,” he explains, “for the people who are 8,000 miles away from me who die from snakebite.”
A man named Tim Friede has purposely been bitten by snakes over 200 times, all in the name of science and creating an antidote.
He has even injected himself with venom more than 700 times.
Hear Friede and Dr. Jacob Glanville discuss their quest to discover a universal antivenom.
Tim Friede: Facebook | YouTube
Source: ‘Unparalleled’ snake antivenom made from man bitten 200 times; Snakes have bitten this man hundreds of times. His blood could help save lives; Snake venom protection by a cocktail of varespladib and broadly neutralizing human antibodies
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