Conotoxin is toxin made by cone snails, which are fish eating snails that inhabit tropical coral reefs. Each of the 500 species of cone snail produces roughly 50 to 100 distinct conotoxins which they use to immobilize prey. Researchers believe that this sea snail venom could be used to create a pain medication to replace morphine.
Conotoxin has not yet been tested on humans but when tested on animals conotoxin could produce pain relief without the nasty side effects. The researchers believe that with more studies and testing on humans that conotoxin has the potential to completely revolutionize pain treatment for cancer patients and chronic pain sufferers.
Morphine can have a range of side effects including nausea, drowsiness and movement defects. If the research proves successful they hope the treatment will allow sufferer's to lead a normal life-- pain free.
1. A good example of why we need to protect the environment. There are a lot of helpful things out there waiting to be discovered... if we don't kill them all off first.
Richard Day Gore
Posted at 9:14AM on Dec 13th 2006 by richard day gore