Test Finds Painkiller Potential in Spider Venom

Researchers screened more than 100 spider toxins and identified a protein from the venom of the Peruvian green velvet tarantula that blunts activity in pain-transmitting neurons.

The findings, reported in the journal Current Biology, show the new screening method used by the scientists has the potential to search millions of different spider toxins for safe pain-killing drugs and therapies.

The researchers note that they tested the spider toxins on only one of a dozen suspected human pain channels.

“The likelihood is that within the vast diversity of spider toxins we will find others that are active against other channels important for pain,” says Michael Nitabach, associate professor of cellular and molecular physiology and of genetics at Yale, and senior author of the paper.