AI-designed antivenoms could help treat lethal snakebites
Hear the biggest stories from the world of science | 15 January 2025
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00:46 Designing new antivenoms to treat snakebites
Researchers have shown that machine learning can quickly design antivenoms that are effective against lethal snake-toxins, which they hope will help tackle a serious public health issue. Thousands of people die as a result of snakebites each year, but treatment options are limited, expensive and often difficult to access in the resource-poor settings where most bites occur. The computer-aided approach allowed researchers to design two proteins that provided near total protection against individual snake toxins in mouse experiments. While limited in scope, the team behind the work believe these results demonstrate the promise of the approach in designing effective and cheaper treatments for use in humans.
Research Article: Vázquez Torres et al.
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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-00134-y
This story originally appeared on: Nature - Author:Benjamin Thompson
