Toxin from a Dangerous Fish Delicacy

In tiny doses, the pufferfish’s tetrodotoxin can be turned into a pain-relieving ion channel blocker.

Written byKerry Grens

| 2 min read

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Because it’s restricted to the peripheral compartment, we think that’s why it’s so safe. It’s blocking pain from ever getting to the brain.—Christopher Gallen, Wex Pharmaceuticals

It takes only a milligram of tetrodotoxin (TTX) from improperly prepared fugu—typically made from one of a number of genera of pufferfish in Japanese or Korean cuisine—to kill an unlucky diner. Just 20 minutes after it passes a person’s lips, the tongue goes numb. Then, headache, vomiting, paralysis, and difficulty breathing can follow, and victims might die within a few hours. While tragic in the culinary setting, TTX has been a windfall for neuroscience and, if all goes well with ongoing clinical trials, may one day serve as a potent painkiller.

Since the 1960s, TTX has been a favored ...

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Meet the Author

Kerry Grens
Kerry served as The Scientist’s news director until 2021. Before joining The Scientist in 2013, she was a stringer for Reuters Health, the senior health and science reporter at WHYY in Philadelphia, and the health and science reporter at New Hampshire Public Radio. Kerry got her start in journalism as a AAAS Mass Media fellow at KUNC in Colorado. She has a master’s in biological sciences from Stanford University and a biology degree from Loyola University Chicago.
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