Total Chad Gets Bit by Hundreds Venomous Snakes to Develop Universal Antivenom

It sounds like the origin story of a superhero, but there's nothing fictional about what Tim Friede's accomplished. 

Since 2001, the 57-year-old Wisconsin man has let himself be bitten by venomous snakes on an incredible 200 occasions, inuring his immune system to the serpents' deadly toxins. 

Cobras, black mambas, you name it: Friede has weathered them all. That's on top of injecting himself with over 650 doses of increasingly potent amounts of venom.

"They want to kill me," Friede told NPR. "I want to survive."

And in building such a remarkable tolerance, Friede's badass quest may help save other people's lives, too. Scientists have identified the antibodies in Friede's blood responsible for neutralizing the toxins, in what they believe is a major milestone towards developing a universal antivenom — a cure-all antidote for any lethal snakebite.

As reported in a new study in the journal Cell, the researchers combined some of Friede's superpowered antibodies with an existing treatment for snake venom to create a "cocktail" that can protect against the venom of 19 different species of snakes found across the world.

Around 138,000 people die each year from snakebites, according to the World Health Organization. Those who survive can suffer permanent disabilities, loss of limbs, stroke, and even blindness. Having access to the necessary antivenom, especially in poorer or difficult-to-access regions, is a tall order, especially when there are so many different kinds of deadly serpents.

"This is a bigger problem than the first world realizes," study lead author Jacob Glanville, CEO of the biotech company Centivax, told the New York Times.

A universal cure could change the equation. The main challenge, however, is that venoms are very diverse in how they kill you. Some are neurotoxins that attack the nervous system, causing paralysis. Others, like hemotoxins, disrupt blood clotting, damage blood vessels, and cause hemorrhaging. Then there're cytotoxins, which will outright rot your flesh.

Traditionally, antivenoms have been produced by exposing animals like a horse to small amounts of venom, and extracting the antibodies they create. But these antibodies can only treat the venom the animal was exposed to, and come with their own complications. Glanville had long believed you could produce a more effective version from a human exposed to lots of different snake bites. But for years, the ideal candidate evaded him.

"I was calling vivariums hoping for a clumsy snake researcher," Glanville told NPR.

Fate, thankfully, brought the two together. By studying Friede's blood, Glanville and his colleague Peter Kwong, a structural biologist at Columbia University, found an "ultra-broad antibody" that completely neutralized the neurotoxic venom of five snakes, including the black mamba and several cobras. The team added a molecule called varespladib, which has been studied as a snakebite treatment, to create a more powerful cocktail. Then they found another broadly-acting antibody in Friede's blood.

"And so we added that in and that's when we suddenly saw this coherent protection that was happening across this large panel," Glanville told NPR.

In all, their concoction fully protected mice against the venom from 13 different species of snakes, and offered partial protection against six more species.

There're still significant challenges ahead before this can become a bona fide universal antivenom. Its efficacy still needs to be proven in humans. And the treatment currently doesn't protect against vipers, which account for roughly half of all venomous snakes, noted David Williams, a scientist who studies antivenoms for the WHO, to NPR.

But for Friede, who endured his last snakebite in 2018, his work is finished.

"I'm really proud that I can do something in life for humanity, to make a difference for people that are 8,000 miles away, that I'm never going to meet, never going to talk to, never going to see, probably," Friede told the NYT.

More on cure-alls: Single Injection Appears to Prevent Virtually All Allergic Reactions

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