Tim Friede was feeling particularly down on the day after the September 11 attacks, so he went to his basement and let two of the world’s deadliest snakes bite him.
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\u200eFour days later, he woke up from a coma.
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\u200e”I know what it feels like to die from snakebite,” Friede told AFP via video call from his home in the small US town of Two Rivers, Wisconsin.
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\u200eThis experience might put most people off snakes entirely, but Friede simply vowed to be more careful next time.
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\u200eFrom 2000 to 2018, he allowed himself to be bitten by snakes more than 200 times. He also injected himself with their venom over 650 times.
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\u200eFriede endured this pain because he wanted to achieve total immunity to venom, a practice called mithridatism, which should not be tried at home.
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\u200eAfter a couple of years, Friede started to believe he could be the basis for a better kind of antivenom. The former truck mechanic, who does not have a university degree, long struggled to be taken seriously by scientists.
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\u200eBut last month, a study published in the prestigious Cell journal showed that antibodies from his blood protect against a range of snake venom.
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\u200eThe researchers now hope Friede’s hyper-immunity could even lead to the development of a universal antivenom.
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\u200eThis would fill a major need, because currently most antivenoms only cover one or a few of the world’s 600 venomous snakes.
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\u200eUp to 138,000 people are killed by snakebites a year, while 400,000 suffer amputations or other disabilities, according to the World Health Organisation.
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\u200eThese figures are believed to be vastly underestimated because snakebite victims typically live in poorer, remote areas.
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\u200e- ‘Pain every time’ –
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\u200eFriede’s first bite was from a harmless garter snake when he was five years old.
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\u200e”I was afraid, I cried, I ran away,” said Friede, now 57.
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\u200eThen he started bringing snakes home and hiding them in pickle jars. His mother sought counselling, but his interest in snakes persisted.
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\u200eThings escalated after Friede attended a class that taught him how to “milk” snakes for their venom.
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\u200eHow antivenom is made has changed little over the last 125 years.
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\u200eSmall doses of snake venom are injected into animals such as horses, which produce antibodies that can be extracted and used as antivenom.
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\u200eHowever this antivenom usually only works for bites from that particular species of snake — and it includes other antibodies from horse that can cause serious side-effects including anaphylactic shock.
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\u200e”I thought, well, if they make antivenom in horses, why can’t I just use myself as a primate?” Friede said.
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\u200eHe started working through the venom from all the deadly species he could get his hands on, such as cobras, taipans, black mambas and rattlesnakes.
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\u200e”There is pain every time,” he said.
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\u200e- ‘Proud’ –
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\u200eFor years, the scientists he contacted to take advantage of his immunity refused to bite.
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\u200eThen in 2017, immunologist Jacob Glanville, who previously worked on universal vaccines, turned his attention towards antivenom.
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\u200eGlanville told AFP he had been looking for “a clumsy snake researcher who’d been bit accidentally a couple times,” when he came across a video of Friede taking brutal back-to-back snake bites.
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\u200eWhen they first spoke, Glanville said he told Friede: “I know this is awkward, but I would love to get my hands on some of your blood.”
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\u200e”I’ve been waiting for this call for a long time,” came the response, Glanville said.
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\u200eThe antivenom described in the Cell paper includes two antibodies from Friede’s blood, as well as a drug called varespladib.
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\u200eIt offered mice full protection against 13 of the 19 snake species tested, and partial protection for the remaining six.
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\u200eThe researchers hope a future cocktail will cover far more snakes — particularly vipers — with further trials planned on dogs in Australia.
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\u200eTimothy Jackson of the Australian Venom Research Unit praised the immunological research, but questioned whether a human needed to be involved, pointing to synthetically developed antibodies.
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\u200eGlanville said the ultimate goal of his US-based firm Centivax was to develop a universal antivenom administered by something like an EpiPen, potentially produced in India to keep the costs down.
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\u200eFriede said he was “proud” to have made a “small difference” in medical history.
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\u200eNow working for Centivax, Friede stopped self-inflicting himself with venom in 2018 to save the firm from liability issues.
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\u200eBut he hopes to get bitten by snakes again in the future.
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\u200e”I do miss it,” he said.
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\u200eAFP
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