{"id":1472,"date":"2013-10-09T12:50:20","date_gmt":"2013-10-09T02:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?p=1472"},"modified":"2013-10-09T13:07:41","modified_gmt":"2013-10-09T03:07:41","slug":"uqs-batty-breakthrough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?p=1472","title":{"rendered":"UQ’s batty breakthrough"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"26079\"<\/a>
Bryan Fry: Picture UQ<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\nVenom from vampire bats and other creatures is providing the basis for medical breakthroughs following the discovery of various ways bats can prevent blood clots.\r\n\r\nThe University of Queensland\u2019s Professor Bryan Fry is leading an international team who have discovered new types of anticoagulants and new compounds that open arteries to assist blood flow.\r\n\r\nFry said the venom of the common vampire bat from Central and South America has much potential for use in drug development for treatment of stroke, heart disease and other ailments.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe key to what we\u2019re doing is the fact that I collect the venomous animals myself,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhenever possible I don\u2019t purchase them, which is quite different from most biochemists who buy the venom, and they\u2019re essentially all working on the same stuff.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe biological reality is that they might miss the subtlety, because when you find venomous animals in the wild there will be ecological differences and differences in diet, vegetation and prey; thus they will be useful in different ways.\u201d\r\n\r\nFry said when he was studying honours, he worked with viper venom which had a compound with potent cancer-fighting properties, \u201cabout 50 times stronger\u201d than similar compounds of different populations of the same animal.\r\n\r\nSynthetic version of the compounds studied by Fry and his team could be created for tests in further studies and drug production.\r\n\r\nOne of the difficulties of harnessing the power of venom for medicine is the destruction of habitat for many venomous creatures.\r\n\r\n\u201cSadly the weakest argument for conservation is how awesome these creatures are,\u201d Fry said.\r\n\r\n\u201cIf you want to convince the [Campbell] Newmans or [Tony] Abbotts about this stuff you need to point out that you could be destroying a wonder drug that could save your grandmother or make you billions.\r\n\r\nFry added that the development of \u201cwonder drugs\u201d from such sources suggests we should conserve everything.\r\n\r\n\u201cThere\u2019s a recent diabetes treatment that\u2019s been derived from Komodo dragon venom,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd Komodo dragons are far more endangered than pandas, who get all the endangered species press, though they\u2019ve never provided a drug lead.\r\n\r\n\u201cVenomous animals suffer direct human persecution and it\u2019s a very harmful thing.\u201d\r\n\r\nFry said he developed a fascination with venom and toxins as a child.\r\n\r\n\u201cOne very shaping experience I had was being strapped to a hospital bed with tubes coming out of everywhere in absolute agony from spinal meningitis, which left me with permanent deafness in my right ear,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe ear is essentially only good for hanging sunglasses off, but it\u2019s a daily reminder of the incredible power of natural toxins.\u201d\r\n\r\nSAM WORRAD","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Venom from vampire bats and other creatures is providing the basis for medical breakthroughs following the discovery of various ways bats can prevent blood clots. The University of Queensland\u2019s Professor Bryan Fry is leading an international team who have discovered new types of anticoagulants and new compounds that open arteries to assist blood flow. Fry […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1332,1331,106,57,1334,1333,1335],"class_list":["post-1472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-anticoagulants","tag-bryan-fry","tag-university-of-queensland","tag-uq","tag-vampire-bats","tag-venom","tag-venomous-animals"],"rise-blocks_total_comments":1,"rise-blocks_categories":[{"term_id":5,"name":"News","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":398,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":5,"category_count":398,"category_description":"","cat_name":"News","category_nicename":"news","category_parent":0}],"rise-blocks_excerpt":"Venom from vampire bats and other creatures is providing the basis for medical breakthroughs following the discovery of various ways bats can prevent blood clots. The University of Queensland\u2019s Professor Bryan Fry is leading an international team who have discovered new types of anticoagulants and new compounds that open arteries to assist blood flow. Fry said the venom of the..","blog_post_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","full":""},"categories_names":{"5":{"name":"News","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?cat=5"}},"tags_names":{"1332":{"name":"anticoagulants","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=anticoagulants"},"1331":{"name":"Bryan Fry","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=bryan-fry"},"106":{"name":"University of Queensland","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=university-of-queensland"},"57":{"name":"UQ","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=uq"},"1334":{"name":"vampire bats","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=vampire-bats"},"1333":{"name":"venom","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=venom"},"1335":{"name":"venomous animals","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=venomous-animals"}},"comments_number":"1","wpmagazine_modules_lite_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","cvmm-medium":"","cvmm-medium-plus":"","cvmm-portrait":"","cvmm-medium-square":"","cvmm-large":"","cvmm-small":"","full":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1472"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1540,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1472\/revisions\/1540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}