Application of poison in puffer fish for pain reliever

Astellas Pharma, Japan, has invested $ 15 million to find ways to take advantage of the powerful neurotoxin in puffer fish as an analgesic.

Use poisonous fish puffer as an analgesic

Eating puffer fish, especially liver, is an extremely dangerous act. If there are very small negligence in the process of processing, people can also die from the toxin inside this fish called tetrodotoxin. This toxin will block the signal between nerve cells, leading to cardiac arrest, . and eventually death.

However, Japanese pharmaceutical firm Astellas Pharma Inc has announced it will develop painkillers by blocking nerve connections, similar to the effects of puffer poison in humans. Of course, this drug only relieves pain, but does not prevent other important functions of the body. To do that, this drug will only inhibit a neural link channel called NaV1.7.

The poison in puffer fish can be used to produce painkillers.

Currently, Astellas has invested an initial amount of $ 15 million (possibly hundreds of millions in the future) for a company called Cheomocell in New Jersey, USA to study the drug NaV1.7 . Christian Kopfli, director of Chromocell said: 'Everyone knows if you stop NaV1.7, you will get a very effective painkiller. However, side effects will be a huge threat to this project. "

In fact, the application of toxins to treat drugs is not so new to medicine. We've got Botox, a wrinkle-removal drug commonly used by Hollywood stars, derived from botulinum - a neurotoxin created by bacteria. In small doses, aiming exactly at the target, the drug is simply a temporary paralyzed muscle.

Finally, the project to use puffer poison to make painkillers must still be further studied to be tested on humans but if successful, this promises to be an effective analgesic for humans.

One more interesting information, Toshio Narahashi (1927-2013), professor at Northwestern University, discovered the neurotoxic mechanism of tetrodotoxin. When he died, in his obituary, he recalled his findings with a passage from the 007 spy movie "From Russia With Love" , a Russian spy poisoned with British spies with a tetrodotoxin impregnated blade hidden in his shoes. But this is just a movie story.