DALLAS (AP) -- A substance in the saliva of vampire bats could prove to be a potent new treatment for strokes, an Australian scientist says.
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Jan. 13, 2003
By James Winshall, M.D.
Harvard Medical School
How does this article relate to me?
Sometimes important medical advances come from the most unlikely places. Genetically engineered drugs may seem like the wave of the future, but Mother Nature still has a few tricks up her sleeve. This story about vampire bats — usually associated with horror movies, not medical laboratories — should remind us that exploring and protecting natural biodiversity has some practical benefits.
Until about 40 years ago, all drugs were natural products. For example, aspirin was extracted from willow bark, and penicillin from bread mold. Then, in the 1950s and 1960s medical scientists began to truly create new drugs in the laboratory. To this day, most new drugs are discovered by making hundreds of thousands of compounds in the lab and screening them to see if they might have any therapeutic benefit. The latest twist is using genetic techniques to create drugs that have a specific biological purpose.
Nonetheless, natural sources continue to provide us with new drugs, including antibiotics found in fungi that can fight drug-resistant bacteria, and plants that naturally produce innovative cancer chemotherapy. In fact, many pharmaceutical companies employ full-time field researchers whose job it is to find plants and animals that might pave the way to new drugs. This story about the natural clot-busters found in vampire bat saliva is a perfect illustration of the way that the forces of natural selection can sometimes produce a uniquely effective solution to a complex problem.
What changes do I need to make?
If you or a loved one is unfortunate enough to suffer a stroke, don't ask about vampire bat clot-busters quite yet. In fact, such a drug is unlikely to ever make it to the pharmacist's shelf, since only a tiny fraction of potential drugs ever prove themselves to be truly safe and effective.
Instead, the point here is that the old-fashioned way of creating new drugs — finding them in nature — still pays off. Unique but threatened habitats such as rain forests are home to an amazing array of yet-undiscovered plants and animals. If we want to take advantage of this natural diversity, even for practical purposes such as developing new drugs and chemicals, we need to do more to protect these areas.
What can I expect in the future?
Strokes are the third leading cause of death in the United States, and unfortunately, only some of these are preventable. Many experts see clot-busting drugs as the treatment of the future, but right now such an approach is used for a minority of stroke victims. Part of the problem is that strokes aren't recognized quickly enough, but dangerous bleeding from the clot-busting drugs continues to be a limiting factor. While no one knows if the compound found in vampire bat saliva might be the answer, it may at least point us in a promising direction.
Related Areas:
Stroke
