Truck Mechanic Turned Snakebite Specialist: Over 200 Bites Later, He's Making Antidotes

A previous truck mechanic who has willingly endured over 200 snake bites is now assisting researchers in developing an 'exceptional antivenom'.

Tim Friede, aged 57, has undergone over 700 injections containing the venom from mambas, cobras, and taipans snakes. This experimentation has raised expectations that scientists might be able to create a broad-spectrum antivenom.

Poisonous snakes lead to approximately 140,000 deaths annually, and traditional antivenoms take considerable time to develop and usually work effectively against just one snake species.

However, Mr. Friede's blood is rich with antibodies from various snakes, developed over more than 25 years of conditioning his immune system against potential bite incidents.

Mr Friede, from Wisconsin In the United States, they began extracting snake venom starting in 1999, then diluted it and injected minuscule amounts.

He faced several setbacks – in 2001, he fell into a four-day coma after consecutive cobra bites.

After watching a YouTube video of Mr. Friede, Jacob Glanville, who leads the U.S.-based biotechnology firm Centivax, reached out to him.

Mr. Glanville, who referred to Mr. Friede as the creator of the 'Achilles' heel for all serpents,' stated, 'If anyone possessed the key to a universally effective antivenom circulating in their blood, I believed it would certainly be him.'

The tests indicated that Mr. Friede’s blood is immune to venoms, even from snakes he hasn’t been bitten by.

Researchers discovered that when they mixed his blood with certain medications and tested it against the venoms from 19 different species, Mr. Friede showed complete immunity to 13 of them, while the toxins from the remaining ones were somewhat neutralized.

Approximately 650 snake species exist compared to only 30 antibody treatments.

However, a widely effective antidote might be ready within just five years, according to experts.

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