A chemist at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Vienna) is looking for unusual structures in snake venom and plans to prove their medical effectiveness.
What in the 1950s led to the development of Captopril, a drug for the treatment of hypertension, is being continued in an interesting new chapter with the analysis of venom from South American pit vipers and tropical rattlesnakes.
Vienna (TU). – "We receive the snake venom as a yellow crystalline powder in ampules directly from the 'Instituto Butantan' (http://www.butantan.gov.br/) in São Paulo, Brazil. That is a well-known scientific institution, also popular with tourists, which studies some of the most poisonous snake species in the world," explains Martina Marchetti, assistant professor at the Institute for Chemical Technologies and Analytics at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Vienna). Her investigations focus on the venoms of four different pit vipers (Bothrops) as well as a tropical rattlesnake (Crotalus durissus terrificus). All five species are native to South America. They are among the most aggressive snake varieties there. Every year in South America, 2.5 million people are bitten by snakes. About 100,000 die as a result.