Metrion taps Venomtech’s venom library for ion channel modulator discovery

There is a venom library. What the fuck are our stroke researchers doing with this to help with stroke recovery? There is already this out there:

Snake Venom Helps Hydrogels Stop the Bleeding

Intravenous Ancrod for Treatment of Acute Ischemic Stroke

Biting back - snake venom contains toxic clotting factors

 

Snake Venom Could Hold Key To Alzheimer’s Breakthrough

The latest here: 

Metrion taps Venomtech’s venom library for ion channel modulator discovery

Snake Venom Could Hold Key To Alzheimer’s Breakthrough

Why don't we have a similar title for stroke? Is no one in stroke working on a BHAG -Big Hairy Audacious Goal?

Maybe followup these? But since we have NO stroke leadership or strategy NOTHING will be done.

Snake Venom Helps Hydrogels Stop the Bleeding

Intravenous Ancrod for Treatment of Acute Ischemic Stroke

 

The latest here:

Snake Venom Could Hold Key To Alzheimer’s Breakthrough 

Snake Venom Helps Hydrogels Stop the Bleeding

Possible use in hemorrhagic stroke? We'll never know because no one in stroke is planning or running a strategy.

Snake Venom Helps Hydrogels Stop the Bleeding

A nanofiber hydrogel infused with snake venom may be the best material to stop bleeding quickly, according to Rice University scientists.
The hydrogel called SB50 incorporates batroxobin, a venom produced by two species of South American pit viper. It can be injected as a liquid and quickly turns into a gel that conforms to the site of a wound, keeping it closed, and promotes clotting within seconds.
Rice chemist Jeffrey Hartgerink, lead author Vivek Kumar and their colleagues reported their discovery in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Biomaterials Science and Engineering. The hydrogel may be most useful for surgeries, particularly for patients who take anti-coagulant drugs to thin their blood.
“It’s interesting that you can take something so deadly and turn it into something that has the potential to save lives,” Hartgerink said.
Batroxobin was recognized for its properties as a coagulant – a substance that encourages blood to clot – in 1936. It has been used in various therapies as a way to remove excess fibrin proteins from the blood to treat thrombosis and as a topical hemostat. It has also been used as a diagnostic tool to determine blood-clotting time in the presence of heparin, an anti-coagulant drug.
“From a clinical perspective, that’s far and away the most important issue here,” Hartgerink said. “There’s a lot of different things that can trigger blood coagulation, but when you’re on heparin, most of them don’t work, or they work slowly or poorly. That obviously causes problems if you’re bleeding.
“Heparin blocks the function of thrombin, an enzyme that begins a cascade of reactions that lead to the clotting of blood,” he said. “Batroxobin is also an enzyme with similar function to thrombin, but its function is not blocked by heparin. This is important because surgical bleeding in patients taking heparin can be a serious problem. The use of batroxobin allows us to get around this problem because it can immediately start the clotting process, regardless of whether heparin is there or not.”
The batroxobin combined with the Rice lab’s hydrogels isn’t taken directly from snakes, Hartgerink said. The substance used for medicine is produced by genetically modified bacteria and then purified, avoiding the risk of other contaminant toxins.
The Rice researchers combined batroxobin with their synthetic, self-assembling nanofibers, which can be loaded into a syringe and injected at the site of a wound, where they reassemble themselves into a gel.
Tests showed the new material stopped a wound from bleeding in as little as six seconds, and further prodding of the wound minutes later did not reopen it. The researchers also tested several other options: the hydrogel without batroxobin, the batroxobin without the hydrogel, a current clinical hemostat known as GelFoam and an alternative self-assembling hemostat known as Puramatrix and found that none were as effective, especially in the presence of anti-coagulants.
The new work builds upon the Rice lab’s extensive development of injectable hydrogel scaffolds that help wounds heal and grow natural tissue. The synthetic scaffolds are built from the peptide sequences to mimic natural processes.
“To be clear, we did not discover nor do any of the initial investigations of batroxobin,” Hartgerink said. “Its properties have been well-known for many decades. What we did was combine it with the hydrogel we’ve been working on for a long time.
“We think SB50 has great potential to stop surgical bleeding, particularly in difficult cases in which the patient is taking heparin or other anti-coagulants,” he said. “SB50 takes the powerful clotting ability of this snake venom and makes it far more effective by delivering it in an easily localized hydrogel that prevents possible unwanted systemic effects from using batroxobin alone.”
SB50 will require FDA approval before clinical use, Hartgerink said. While batroxobin is already approved, the Rice lab’s hydrogel has not yet won approval, a process he expects will take several more years of testing.
The National Institutes of Health and the Welch Foundation supported the research.
Source: Rice University

A tick’s spit leads to an entire lesson in blood clotting

If you'd rather, there is

vampire bat saliva

snake venom,

and the new one needing testing.

Ticks' spit

Biting back - snake venom contains toxic clotting factors

Note that it also contains anti-clotting factors, maybe it can become as useful as vampire bats. Your researcher needs to look into applications for stroke.
Research article here:

In vivo evaluation of homeostatic effects of Echis carinatus snake venom in Iran

Writeup here: 

Biting back - snake venom contains toxic clotting factors

The powerful venom of the saw-scaled viper Echis carinatus contains both anticoagulants and coagulants finds a study published in the launch edition of BioMed Central’s open access journal Journal of Venomous Animals and Toxins including Tropical Diseases (JVATiTD). These may be a source of potent drugs to treat human disease.

The saw-scaled viper family Echis, responsible for most snake attacks on humans, are recognizable by the ‘sizzling’ noise they make, produced by rubbing together special serrated scales, when threatened. Echis venom causes coagulopathy, which can result in symptoms ranging from lack of blood clotting, hemorrhage, renal failure and stroke. 

Researchers from the Razi Vaccine and Serum Research Institute, Iran led by Hossein Zolfagharian noted that treating plasma with venom from  Echis carinatus actually causes it to coagulate. Splitting the venom by ion exchange chromatography showed that then venom contained both coagulants and anticoagulants. The clotting factors alone were toxic to mice.

The diametric effects of snake venom on blood are of interest because of medical applications, and although snakes can be considered as dangerous to humans – they may yet save lives.

In the auspicious Year of the Snake, BioMed Central, the open access publisher, is pleased to announce that the  Journal of Venomous Animals and Toxins including Tropical Diseases (JVATiTD), the official academic journal of the The Center for the Study of Venoms and Venomous Animals (CEVAP) of São Paulo State University (UNESP), based in Brazil, has moved to BioMed Central's open access publishing platform. Also this journal marks growth of BioMed Central’s portfolio of open access journals to 250. 

Along with research into snakes JVATiTD publishes studies into all aspects of toxins, venomous animals, and their derivative products, as well as tropical diseases especially infectious diseases, parasites and immunology.

A Pilot Study in Homeopathic and Anthroposophical Treatment of Stroke

This one is impossible to figure out but homeopathy is just water so no treatment at all. Anthroposophical is defined here;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthroposophical_medicine

It's even more nonsensical.

A Pilot Study in Homeopathic and Anthroposophical Treatment of Stroke

You can read the full article at the link above, its bizarre.
Abstract
In a retrospective pilot study with 172 patients, two complementary treatment approaches one homeopathic, the other following a WALA anthroposophic treatment were compared as to their possible efficacy in treating the sequelae of stroke. In both groups, the treatment consisted chiefly in the use of snake poisons and arnica in homeopathic doses(water). A slightly better result was found with the homeopathic approach. This practical experience made it possible to take the further step of designing a therapeutic schema that proves effective in practice while respecting both approaches the need of anthroposophical medicine for a pathophysiological rationale and the need of homeopathy for an individualized treatment.
The definition of homeopathic dilutions;
Homeopathy involves a process known by practitioners as "dynamisation" or "potentisation" whereby a substance is diluted with alcohol or distilled water and then vigorously shaken in a process called "succussion". Insoluble solids, such as quartz and oyster shell, are diluted by grinding them with lactose (trituration). The founder of homeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann (1755 — 1843) believed that the process of succussion activated the "vital energy" of the diluted substance,^[1] and that successive dilutions increased the "potency" of the remedy(bizarre belief).
  But don't take my word for any of this, ask your regular doctor, not your homeopathic, naturopathic,  or integrative doctor.

If you really want to be baffled by bullshit this one is great reading;
 http://www.feg.unesp.br/~ojs/index.php/ijhdr/article/viewFile/614/622

Intravenous Ancrod for Treatment of Acute Ischemic Stroke

Snake venom if you are queasy on bat saliva. May, 2000 so where is the hyperacute protocol?

Intravenous Ancrod for Treatment of Acute Ischemic Stroke

Context  Approved treatment options for acute ischemic stroke in the United States and Canada are limited at present to intravenous tissue-type plasminogen activator, but bleeding complications, including intracranial hemorrhage, are a recognized complication.
Objective  To evaluate the efficacy and safety of the defibrinogenating agent ancrod in patients with acute ischemic stroke.
Design  The Stroke Treatment with Ancrod Trial (STAT), a randomized, parallel-group, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial conducted between August 1993 and January 1998.
Setting  Forty-eight centers, primarily community hospitals, in the United States and Canada.
Patients  A total of 500 patients with an acute or progressing ischemic neurological deficit were enrolled and included in the intent-to-treat analysis.
Interventions  Patients were randomly assigned to receive ancrod (n=248) or placebo (n=252) as a continuous 72-hour intravenous infusion beginning within 3 hours of stroke onset, followed by infusions lasting approximately 1 hour at 96 and 120 hours. The ancrod regimen was designed to decrease plasma fibrinogen levels to 1.18 to 2.03 µmol/L.
Main Outcome Measures  The primary efficacy end point was functional status, with favorable functional status defined as survival to day 90 with a Barthel Index of 95 or more or at least the prestroke value, compared by treatment group. Primary safety variables included symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage and mortality.
Results  Favorable functional status was achieved by more patients in the ancrod group (42.2%) than in the placebo group (34.4%; P=.04) by the prespecified covariate-adjusted analysis. Mortality was not different between treatment groups (at 90 days, 25.4% for the ancrod group and 23% for the placebo group; P=.62), and the proportion of severely disabled patients was less in the ancrod group than in the placebo group (11.8% vs 19.8%; P=.01). The favorable functional status observed with ancrod vs placebo was consistent in all subgroups defined for age, stroke severity, sex, prestroke disability, and time to treatment (≤3 or >3 hours after stroke onset). There was a trend toward more symptomatic intracranial hemorrhages in the ancrod group vs placebo (5.2% vs 2.0%; P=.06), as well as a significant increase in asymptomatic intracranial hemorrhages (19.0% vs 10.7%; P=.01).
Conclusion  In this study, ancrod had a favorable benefit-risk profile for patients with acute ischemic stroke.

Dan Shen agents after an ischaemic stroke - Chinese TCM

From the University of Maryland School of Medicine.  Nothing here is very scientific, although I did like the snake venom.

The University of Maryland and the Center for Integrative Medicine make no warranties, express or implied, about the value or utility for any purpose of the information and resources contained herein.

Read more: http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/echinacea-000239.htm#ixzz1wKK83Ujc

Dan Shen agents after an ischaemic stroke - Chinese TCM

Dan Shen agents are well accepted by Chinese doctors and they are one of the most frequently used Chinese herbal medicines in the treatment of acute ischaemic stroke, heart disease and major (systemic) blood flow disorders. In stroke, the intent is to improve the local brain blood circulation and limit the nerve and brain cell damage caused by an acute lack of blood flow.
Dan Shen agents are given as tablets or injections, often mixed with other traditional Chinese herbal medicines (as Compound Dan Shen agents). The main botanical family in Dan Shen (red sage) is Radix Salviae Miltiorrhizae. Compound Dan Shen agents also contain other Chinese herbal medicines such as Ligni dalbergiae odoriferae, Sanqi, and Bingpian to promote the curative effects and decrease the adverse effects of Dan Shen. The Compound Dan Shen dropping pill is one of these.

What the synthesised research says

Compound Dan Shen injection and Compound Dan Shen dropping pill may improve neurological impairment caused by an acute ischaemic stroke. This conclusion is based on the results of three trials that looked for an improvement in neurological deficit at the end of treatment. This is too few trials with too few participants to have a clear measure of any benefit.
The methodological quality of the included trials was not scientifically rigorous enough to know whether Dan Shen agents help people with stroke and there were too few patients to draw reliable conclusions. The most important thing to people after a stroke is their ability to go about activities of daily living rather than their neurological deficits; which was not measured in these trials. The follow up was also short, approximately one month, even though spontaneous recovery does not plateau until some 5 to 6 months.

How it was tested

The researchers made a thorough search of the medical literature and found only three controlled trials with 304 acute ischaemic stroke patients. All the trials were conducted in China. The average age of patients, more men than women, was between 56 and 62 years.
Two trials combined Compound Dan Shen injection with snake venom in the treatment group and only used snake venom in the control group over 28 days of treatment; all patients also received routine treatment. The doses of snake venom and Compound Dan Shen injection were 0.25 to 0.75 U and 20 ml respectively.
Oral Compound Dan Shen dropping pill was used in one study. It was given three times daily for 28 days. There was no evidence of a difference of effect between this form of Dan Shen and injection with snake venom. 
The timing of the start of treatment after stroke onset was not reported. No deaths were reported within the first two weeks of treatment or during the following 21 to 28 days. This suggests the strokes were not severe.