Beyond the usual suspects of snakes, spiders, and scorpions, the animal kingdom is filled with noxious critters: snails, frogs, fish, anemones, and more make toxins for defense or predation. The noxious chemicals these animals produce are potent, and they often strike where it hurts: pain pathways. These compounds have long captivated researchers hoping to understand their effects and use that knowledge to develop drugs that suppress pain in a wide variety of ailments affecting humans.
Paradoxically, some of these toxins are themselves analgesic, and researchers have worked to develop synthetic derivatives that can be tested as painkillers. Such is the case for the only toxin-derived analgesic to be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA): ziconotide (Prialt), a compound 1,000 times more potent than morphine that was inspired by a component of the venom of the cone snail Conus magus. Other toxins elicit pain, and researchers have used ...
