Within tarantula venom, new hope for safe and novel painkillers found
Screening more than 100 spider toxins, Yale researchers identified a protein from the venom of the Peruvian green velvet tarantula that blunts activity in pain-transmitting neurons. The findings, reported in the March 3 issue of the journal Current Biology, show the new screening method used by the scientists has the potential to search millions of different spider toxins for safe pain-killing drugs and therapies.
The researchers note that they tested the spider toxins on only one of a dozen suspected human pain channels. (more…)