A scientist injected himself with poisonous venom over 850 times to create an ‘unparalleled’ anti-venom in his blood.
Tim Friede let dangerous snakes bite him over 200 times in 18 years, even falling into a coma after two cobra bites.
His mission was to develop immunity to snake bites so scientists could create a universal antivenom.
Tim regularly exposed himself to poison so deadly it would kill a horse, but it all seems to have paid off.
Researchers have used his blood to develop a revolutionary treatment for snake bites.
Snakebites kills up to 140,000 people every year and leave over 420,000 people disabled or needing amputations.
These cases have remained so high due to lack of a universal antivenom against all snakebites.
His project began on YouTube, where had a channel handling snakes.
The scientist hoped to build up his own immunity to snakebites for when he handled the dangerous reptiles for videos.
But his plan went terribly wrong early on, when two Egyptian cobra bites left him fighting for his life in 2001.
Tim told the BBC of the resulting coma: ‘I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to lose a finger. I didn’t want to miss work.
‘It just became a lifestyle and I just kept pushing and pushing and pushing as hard as I could push – for the people who are 8,000 miles away from me who die from snakebite.
Antivenom researchers soon caught wind of what Tim was doing and reached out.
Dr Jacob Glanville, chief executive of biotech company Centivax, said: ‘I was like “this might be awkward, but I’d love to get my hands on some of your blood”.’
Up until that point, antivenom had only been made by injecting small doses of snake venom into animals, such as horses.
As the animal then produces antibodies to fight the poison, researchers would collect those antibodies for use.
But this treatment was limited due to the huge variety of toxins which different venemous bites from different species produce.
This meant the venom and antivenom had to be closely matched.
Tim’s blood has changed everything. His antibodies from 18 years of venom injections have shown to protect against fatal doses from a wide range of dangerous species in recent animal tests.
Researchers focused on venomous bites from the most dangerous snakes around, from the elapid family, including from mambas, cobras, and coral snakes.
Scientists then used Tim’s blood to create a treatment cocktail, which combines two protective antibodies from Friede’s blood and a small chemical that can block venom’s harmful effects.
This cocktail allowed mice to survived deadly injections from 13 out of 19 deadly snake species.
The antivenom also showed partial protection against the remaining six.
Dr Glanville called the results ‘unparalleled’ and beyond anything other scientists could have with Tim’s venom injections.
He added: ‘By the time we reached three components, we had a dramatically unparalleled breadth of full protection for 13 of the 19 species.
‘Had I, as an immunologist, spent a bunch of time thinking about it, I don’t think I would have come up with a better solution.’
The next step for Glanville and his team is to try develop total protection against all elapid snake venom.
They are trying to refine the antibodies further and are experimenting with adding a fourth element to the cocktail.
The other class of venomous snakes, the vipers, are not the focus of this research, but Tim also immunised himself against bites from that category too.
Researchers are optimistic they can formulate treatment against these bite toxins too.
Prof Peter Kwong, a Columbia University researcher, said: ‘I think in the next 10 or 15 years we’ll have something effective against each one of those toxin classes.
‘Tim’s antibodies are really quite extraordinary – he taught his immune system to get this very, very broad recognition.’
The hope is one day is to uncover a single antivenom to combat all dangerous snakebites.
Tim is overjoyed by his contribution to critical health research, saying: ‘I’m doing something good for humanity and that was very important to me.
‘I’m proud of it. It’s pretty cool.’
This work could one day be useful in the UK, where there has been an increase in sightings of the Common European viper in recent weeks.
Also called adders, they are the UK’s only venomous snake in the UK, but pose little danger to humans.
However warnings have been issued to dog walkers, as their pets could die from their venomous bite.
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