Story of Tim Friede who built immunity to snake venom
Tim began injecting himself with small doses of snake venom and
then slowly increased the amount to try to build up tolerance. He would then
let snakes bite him.
Tim Friede has been
bitten by snakes hundreds of times — often on purpose. Now scientists are
studying his blood in hopes of creating a better treatment for snake bites.
Friede has long had a
fascination with reptiles and other venomous creatures. He used to milk
scorpions' and spiders' venom as a hobby and kept dozens of snakes at his
Wisconsin home.
Hoping to protect himself
from snake bites — and out of what he calls “simple curiosity” — he began
injecting himself with small doses of snake venom and then slowly increased the
amount to try to build up tolerance. He would then let snakes bite him.
“At first, it was very scary," Friede
said. “But the more you do it, the better you get at it, the more calm you
become with it.” While no doctor or emergency medical technician — or
anyone, really — would ever suggest this is a remotely good idea, experts say
his method tracks how the body works. When the immune system is exposed to the
toxins in snake venom, it develops antibodies that can neutralise the poison.
If it's a small amount of venom the body can react before it's overwhelmed. And
if it's venom the body has seen before, it can react more quickly and handle
larger exposures.
Friede has withstood
snakebites and injections for nearly two decades and still has a refrigerator
full of venom. In videos posted to his YouTube channel, he shows off swollen
fang marks on his arms from black mamba, taipan and water cobra bites.
“I wanted to push the
limits as close to death as possible to where I'm just basically teetering
right there and then back off of it," he said.
But Friede also wanted to
help. He emailed every scientist he could find, asking them to study the
tolerance he'd built up.
And there is a need:
Around 110,000 people die from snakebite every year, according to the World
Health Organisation. And making antivenom is expensive and difficult. It is
often created by injecting large mammals like horses with venom and collecting
the antibodies they produce. These antivenoms are usually only effective
against specific snake species, and can sometimes produce bad reactions due to
their nonhuman origins.
When Columbia
University's Peter Kwong heard of Friede, he said, “Oh, wow, this is very
unusual. We had a very special individual with amazing antibodies that he
created over 18 years.” In a study published Friday in the journal Cell, Kwong
and collaborators shared what they were able to do with Friede's unique blood:
They identified two antibodies that neutralise venom from many different snake
species with the aim of someday producing a treatment that could offer broad
protection.
It's very early research
— the antivenom was only tested in mice, and researchers are still years away
from human trials. And while their experimental treatment shows promise against
the group of snakes that include mambas and cobras, it's not effective against
vipers, which include snakes like rattlers.
“Despite the promise,
there is much work to do,” said Nicholas Casewell, a snakebite researcher at
Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in an email. Casewell was not involved
with the new study.
Friede's journey has not
been without its missteps. Among them: He said after one bad snake bite he had
to cut off part of his finger. And some particularly nasty cobra bites sent him
to the hospital.
Friede is now employed by
Centivax, a company trying to develop the treatment and that helped pay for the
study. He's excited that his 18-year odyssey could one day save lives from
snakebite, but his message to those inspired to follow in his footsteps is
simple: “Don't do it," he said.
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