Lifesaving Medicines from Venomous Animals - Meet the Expert | National Geographic

Hello everyone and welcome to yet another live here on the channel. I'm Lizzy Daily, your host for today. If you were here last time, welcome back! You are not gonna want to miss this next live with our very special guest today. But if you're new around here, hello! I'm a wildlife biologist and a wildlife TV presenter from the beautiful UK. Today’s sun is on our side and for a good reason because we have a really exciting live coming up.

For those who didn't know, it's International Snake Day today, so happy International Snake Day! We thought we'd celebrate it by talking about venom. I mean, what better way to celebrate today? We're going to be learning all about venomous species and chatting to an expert—probably one of the most accomplished when it comes to looking at some of the world's most venomous and deadly species from across the world.

Now remember, and please do get your questions in to us live! I want to hear from you. Tell me about your favorite venomous snake or favorite venomous species. Perhaps you've had an encounter with a venomous species in the wild? I'll always remember last year when I was in the primary rainforest of Borneo, coming face to face with this nocturnal beautiful primate, the slow loris.

Now, don't be fooled by this fantastic big nocturnal eyes! The slow loris is actually the world's only venomous primate. It is also one of the most primitive primates, but actually, it secretes toxins in its upper arm. You'll often see them kind of licking their armpits, which when mixed with saliva, can cause a really severe allergic reaction. They actually end up coating their young in this saliva to protect them from predators. I mean, venom has so many capabilities! We have lots of different types of venom in the animal kingdom, which we're going to be learning about today. So exciting!

I'm not an expert, but someone who is, is biomedical scientist Zoltán Takács. Now, he really has been everywhere, studying venomous species across the world. But really what he does is he looks at the genetic blueprint of these toxins and essentially builds a library of this and uses it to imply it to actually looking at medicines—novel medicines! I mean, how incredible is that?

He doesn't just get home face-to-face with the world's most deadly and venomous species, but as a scientist, he then takes all this understanding of this venom and these toxins and applies it to real-world applications that involve every single one of us watching here today. He has crossed the world, spent in Sahara to Micronesia. You see videos of him everywhere, deep under the water, finding venomous snakes everywhere! He has been and he's actually here with us live right now!

So, Zoltán, welcome! It’s so good to have you on!

Zoltán: Good afternoon! Thank you very much, Lizzy. I mean, just reading about you, you’ve done so much! And of course I missed there, you’re a National Geographic Explorer as well. You ran around in your field! But, Zoltán, I have to ask you, why venom? I mean, why this species? Is that a silly question?

Zoltán: Well, I just follow my childhood passion, actually. I’m in Hungary right now; I’m Hungarian and I was born here. The first venomous snakes I ever caught in my life were just a few kilometers from here, back long, long time ago. I was a high school student in the first year of high school and I’m just fascinated about nature, unfastening about the beauty and unknown in nature. So this drives me, this drives me into science and into exploration; I find it beautiful and very rewarding.

And so, for you, I mean, you've literally traveled the world and come face-to-face with many different venomous species. But let’s talk about what venom is. People have a perception of venom, but why is it so important?

Zoltán: Well, let’s start with why this is so important. Some of the top medications in the world used by every major hospital are coming from venoms. Out of the top three medications used for the most lethal types of heart attacks, two of them are coming from snake venom. One of the most often prescribed medications—used by 40 million patients all over the world—is coming from snake venom. One of the leading groups of medicines used for diabetes is coming from a lizard venom. So they’re really very major medications—life savers, little life savers.

And so why is this happening? There are 150,000 venomous animal species on Earth: snakes, spiders, jellyfish, choruses, insects, and lots of them all over the planet. They have 20 million toxins combined—20 million toxins! Most of them are studied by science. So why do I have so many toxins? Because evolution made venoms into these venomous animals to kill prey or predator in less than one minute.

Venom toxins, the components of the venom, are the only molecules in the entire universe designed by nature to take a life in less than one minute. So how do I do that? They target very important parts of the human body or the other animal bodies like the nervous system, circulation. The same targets that you have to take under control in order to treat diseases. That’s why there’s such a good template, a niche. Nature evolution has perfected them for millions of years so that they target vital receptors in the human body. They are very precision binders, defined with high affinity and very selective.

So it's really a goldmine for medicine!

Lizzy: Yeah, and it sounds like such a big field! I definitely want to come on to you later on a little bit more about what you do in the lab, but kind of bringing it back down to it, I mean, it's International Snake Day! So happy International Snake Day! Let me ask you, what deadly snakes have you worked with?

Zoltán: Oh, I should say venomous snakes! Well, that’s the highest school kid! I started to catch vipers right here in the middle of Hungary. Then I moved down to Bulgaria in a summer vacation for water-catching vipers there. Then I got bold and I went to the US—I caught my first rattlesnakes in the western US. Then I moved to Vietnam; I mean I went to Vietnam and Africa. I've seen everything from sea snakes to rattlesnakes, from black mambas to desert vipers. I like them all!

So, where are snakes the kind of species that you work with the most? You mentioned jellyfish, obviously venomous! But venom comes in many different forms across different groups. So like for you, what are you most passionate about, which group?

Zoltán: Well, there's not a single group which I'm really passionate about because, you know, for science we focus on those venomous animals. I mentioned there are 150,000 different species. There’s a huge arsenal and we focus on those species which have a particular type of toxins which we can use to target a specific receptor in the human body that is important to treat a disease. So let’s say I’m telling you an example right now: we had a major project on scorpion venoms which target autoimmune disorders or scorpion venom which targets cancer. So we’re looking for those kinds of venomous animals which have this kind of toxins blocking potassium channels or target receptors or cells involved in cancer treatment.

Wow! Yeah, so I mean, this real-world application is absolutely incredible. And of course, this research that you do takes you all over the world. So tell us about some of your most memorable expeditions that you've been on.

Zoltán: Well, there are many, you know. I’ve been to 198 countries. Before I’m getting there, I just have to point out that I mentioned how major lifesavers could be the snake venoms and other venoms from animal species. But on the other hand, they’re also one of the deadliest creatures on Earth. So snake bites kill a hundred thousand people around the globe each year—100,000 people die from snakebite every year. They die because they cannot afford antivenom. We have the perfect technology and knowledge on how to make antivenom, but for financial reasons, most of the tropical regions where snake bites are peaking cannot afford antivenom.

So this is really a life saver and also some of the deadliest toxins at the same time. And I have to be careful as I'm searching for these snakes because of course, I can be bitten. I’ve been bitten a number of times, unfortunately!

And so, this is sort of the settings when we go into the adventures in the field. In order to go to the field, first of all, we have to decide what kind of toxins to be looking for and where we are going. We try to time our presence in the field normally at the start of the rainy seasons when you see the highest amount of activity in venomous animals. We don’t want to go in the middle of winter because it’s too cold or in the middle of summer because it’s too hot.

Once in a location, I love to team up with local people, local tribes. Like in Congo, the bark of pygmies need me for what I do if elephants are coming in the rainforest in the middle of the night. So what do you do? You hear the elephants trumpeting; you just run and hide in the buttresses of the trees—the possibly half of my size, you know, I’m an alien.

So being sort of fighting for the hiding place in the buttresses of the tree in the middle of the night in the Congo rainforest, I have to be careful because a colleague of mine actually died in that spot from an elephant attack. They also told me how I can get water from lions in the middle of the rainforest!

You just cut it, you know, and then you can drink it! Okay, what you do to get water? Sorry, to improve your hammock, keep the ants away? You throw ash all around. Now I sleep normally in a hammock, so what I do is I do my fire, you know, it's a kitchen. It's very easy in there in the rainforest to remodel. If you don’t like it, you just put it a couple of meters away. Then you collect ash and you throw it on the trunk of the tree, so it completely stops the ants from coming. I learned this from the bark of pygmies.

So I love to team up with local people because they can teach you so much knowledge. Like in Pakistan, snake charmers told me that it's important to take a kid to them and say, "What? This kid was bitten by a snake! Is it venomous or not?" Do you know what they do? They get their knife, make a cut across the bite mark, fang marks, and they keep the blood between their fingertips. One, two, three! Then their part is if it’s sticky and gummy, then it falls from a venomous snake. If it's not, then it's from a non-venomous snake. And I said, "Wow, this is interesting!" They just explained to me that the snake venom—the viper venom—makes the blood coagulate.

So, I love to team up with local people. Again, we have to get there in the right place, the right season. I make friends with local tribes, and then I set up my campsite. As I mentioned, I normally sleep in a hammock. What's the biggest danger in the rainforest? So, the biggest venomous species are falling tree branches! So you have to put up your hand to look, but nothing is gonna fall on your head!

Lizzy: I was just going to ask you about that because I mean, this is incredible! I'm sure many people watching are thinking, "This is amazing what you do!" You kind of integrate yourself in these environments. But let’s say you head to an environment with the idea of finding a particular species, how do you go about doing that? How do you actually find that species specifically, and then how would you go about actually learning about that species' venom and those toxins?

Zoltán: Okay, so there’s no magic bullet; there’s no guarantee. Sometimes— I mean, in their location in the Sahara or in Congo or in the Amazon—I can spend weeks or two and we don’t find that snake. Sometimes we’re lucky! In the Amazon, you know, we found a bushmaster, like a 2.4 meter, 8 feet long bushmaster!

Actually, to put it in a bag, the snake just shot out like a rocket! So it was a good warning sign to me that, “Zoltán, you still have stuff to learn!” You know, I'm still in a learning curve!

So there is no guarantee that we're gonna find that snake. Basically, you just start to look like the middle viper leaves in a place like, you know, these displaying Hungarian plains in next to the Hungary national parks around me. Or you just have to keep looking! Like if I'm looking for sea snakes, I go to a location—I go to the Pacific Ocean or I go to the Indian Ocean or Panama, hire a fishing man, you know, with the boat, and I say I’m gonna look for a fishing sea snake!

Then he thinks I’m completely crazy, but when he actually sees me jump from the boat for the snake day, he’s actually convinced that I’m crazy. So I mobilize their village! I normally tell— I team up with local hunters and wildlife officer scientists, and I sort of mobilize the whole village and say, “Guys, if anybody spots a venomous creature!”

Yeah, if we look for scorpions, that’s much easier because all you have to do is reach out to UV light. And if you don’t like scorpions, don’t take UV light to the desert because you’re gonna be very disappointed!

So like, you go to the Sahara, you know, I switch on the UV light and I just pick up the scorpion! In one night, you can easily pick up like 20, 30 or more! It's such a fascinating place! I took off my shoes, you know, that was last time—I think in November. I said, “Okay, I’m just relaxing!” So I was just walking in this, where Algeria, Neasha, and Libya meet with each other! Go kill yourself in lights, time! I enjoyed myself a lot picking out the scorpions!

The next morning, I slept there right in the middle of the nowhere. The next morning, I go for a walk and I just see the sand viper tracks right next from my camp! So I’d say, “Well, it’s good I was lucky that I didn’t step on one of these ten vipers walking around me!” Yeah, let’s put that down to you being a biomedical scientist with a lot of experience!

So, I mean, you mentioned your habitat and the fact that this is where it all started. Tell me about where you are at the moment; it looks fantastic!

Zoltán: So this is interesting, and you mentioned this is International Snake Day! One of the most endangered subspecies of venomous snakes lives right here—the middle viper. That’s the species, and there's a subspecies which is only found in this geographical region in Hungary and a couple of places within the immediate surroundings. This is where it lives!

Unfortunately, the biggest threat to venomous creatures and other animals in general is habitat destruction. I mentioned a lot about nature. There are 150,000 animal species, 20 million toxins—we discussed this. This one depends on a healthy biodiversity! If we destroy these habitats, we wipe out this species and the potential to develop new medications.

So yeah, it's good! There's a Hungarian National Park here, which protects the viper, and hopefully, it will be surviving here for many, many generations!

Lizzy: And I guess, I mean, you were talking about the fact that you first caught it when you were, you know, 14 years old. So in your lifetime, even, I'm sure you’ve seen big changes. But, yeah, what an incredible snake species to have on your doorstep! It’s just such a shame that we're seeing this obviously with a lot of our species! But hey, am I right in saying you potentially may have a meadow viper with you?

Zoltán: Oh, yeah! I can show you!

Lizzy: Oh my god, yeah, that’d be fantastic!

Zoltán: So, okay, just give me a second! I will be here!

Lizzy: No problem! For everyone still watching, you can see now a meadow viper on screen! Beautiful, beautiful snake! And that's Zoltán has live! That's what we do here on the channel—we get live!

Zoltán: So this is the middle viper! Wow, it's quite a small snake! You see that six leg band on the back—it’s magnificent! So I can't afford to get bitten; I’ve been bitten by this species before! I’m allergic to the snake venom! And today, snake anti-venom, so I'm not in a good position to get bitten here!

But this is the middle viper! And what you’re looking at right now is, as I mentioned, one of the most endangered snakes in the whole world! My colleagues and friends here just next door, they’re a breeding facility where they actually breed these snakes and they’re released to the wild just to try to maintain the population with as much support as possible!

So, sorry, just to go over—you're allergic to the anti-venom.

Zoltán: I’m allergic to the snake venom and snake anti-venom! So good position to be a snake venom reserve, holding a meadow viper right there, right now! But nevertheless, I have absolute lucia, I have to say!

And snakes at home, actually, when I grew up, there were three people in Hungary who had permits because the snake is a protected species. Three people had a permit to keep this snake, and I was one of them, of course! It’s a very nice snake and this is the habitat if there’s a Hungarian plane! This is untouched here! I wish you know most of that bird wildlife would—I mean the wilderness would be so untouched as us right here!

Lizzy: And for those who are watching that may not know too much about vipers, what kind of habitat would you actually find these vipers in? I'm guessing either basking out in the sun or on kind of stones or sheets things like that?

Zoltán: Yeah, that's correct! They like the sun! So the first snake, as I mentioned, was I back in a long time ago! It was in 1983—first of May or second of May, like in the beginning of May; there was this International Workers' Day or whatever, you know, holidays. So I said, "It's a good excuse to come to their field and look for vipers!" And we got lucky!

So you find this snake in the habitat around me and you just keep going! If you’re alone, your chances are lower, and if you have a couple of friends or colleagues, then you sort of form a line and go in and then, you know, when you see one, then you just scream "snake!" and everybody runs! It’s a very nice feeling to find a snake! I find them absolutely beautiful!

What we do with these snakes, not just the middle viper but, you know, in generality venomous snakes and other venomous animals, is that we sample the genetic blueprint of their toxins because it doesn't matter how great technology we have in the lab, what kind of cutting-edge instruments and scientists working in my group— I need to come to nature and extract the genetic blueprint of their toxins, which we take back to the lab.

So how we do that: we don't kill the snakes; we don't take it back to the lab! But we take a tiny amount of tissue sample, and from that tissue, we put it in a small tube with some kind of liquid which makes it last for a couple of weeks. It comes back to the lab; in the lab, we extract the DNA, the genetic blueprint off of everything. From the DNA sequence, we fish out the toxin genes, and now we have that blueprint of the toxins and then comes bioinformatics in the computer.

We design the largest toxin libraries—literal, like a million, two million, and more toxin variants in this library—and screen which one out of those million-strong libraries is best targeting for a receptor which could be used to take a disease under control.

So yeah, it's really fascinating! The whole research is based on the wisdom of nature. As you know, I joke that, you know, we utilize nature's wisdom here, and this is tied to biodiversity, tied to conservation! Absolutely!

Lizzy: And the applications of it are incredible! It can treat or be for a variety of medicines. You mentioned the huge variety of toxins but are we talking everything from cancer to all types of diseases?

Zoltán: That’s correct! Because again, I keep coming back to how many different venomous animals are in the world, like snakes, spiders, scorpions, lizards, lots of marine creatures, and they all live in different environments. But what they need is to immobilize and kill prey and predator as quickly as possible.

So the venom is a mixture of, let’s say, fifty to a hundred different toxins! So imagine you have so many different animals living from Congo to the Himalayas, from Polynesia to the Sahara! The toxins target a little bit different receptors everywhere, so that's why I have this huge diversity! And that's good for medicine and research because that means that all of them are a little bit different—they target a little bit different receptor, you know, they have a little bit different action, and that's just like a huge goldmine for medicine!

There are many different stages to your job right now! We were discussing what kinds of medications are in clinical use at this moment, but there are other medications on the pipeline so in clinical trials. There are medications from animal venom—from a shrew venom, actually—for cancer. There is another one from a sea anemone for autoimmune disorders, and there is another one for heart failure from the black mamba venom!

Wow! Yes, a real variety then! Gosh, that’s absolutely incredible! Your job, I mean, it has many different faces, doesn’t it, really? From being in the lab to being out in the field! I can see from where you are currently, you’re sat on a lot of kits, and I was wondering if you've got anything in there that you could show us a little bit more to tell us more about how you would actually go about taking those tissue samples?

Zoltán: So, all of these cases normally, it just makes it possible to camp out. So I have food, I have sleeping bags, and equipment. I like to take pictures! This is actually my key to samples! I’m saying so, it’s a small case and it’s very low-tech—so it doesn’t—things cannot go wrong easily! I have different solutions and needles.

So, I get the snake! What if I get a tissue sample from a snake? I’ve got the snake! I put the snake head into a tube! So these are deadly snakes and I don’t want to get bitten! So I just slide the snake head into the tube! Now I can safely handle the snake!

And I get, you know, one of these—one of these needles! And that ends up directly to the heart—it’s completely fine! This is how vets do it if they are sampling blood from a snake! Then I get a couple drops of blood directly from the snake because from that blood, you can extract the DNA, genetic blueprint! So this is what we’re taking back! The snake, of course, it doesn’t hurt that snake; it just released a snake, and we come back with two small tubes, each containing some tissue sample from snakes, spiders, scorpions—you name it!

Yeah, that’s fantastic! And I was quite interested to know actually how you take those samples! So yeah, I mean gosh, what is your problem?

Zoltán: The biggest problem in the samples is that the biggest hurdle is of course we need permits! So you cannot just show up in Vietnam and say, “Okay, I’m gonna start catching snakes and bringing their samples out,” which is completely normal. But in some instances, you know, it takes like a year or two to get the permits! You need a permit to catch a snake and you need a permit to take out the tissue sample from the country and sometimes to export from the country and to import to your destination!

Lizzy: And what’s your next big project? Where are you heading to next or what venomous species are you going to find?

Zoltán: Well, who knows? In the current situation, but I have pending projects which are on hold for us, the Sahara, northern Congo, Sudan, and Pakistan.

Lizzy: And what will you be seeing in Sudan?

Zoltán: I have interest—as I mentioned, we will look for anything, but anything which has man—oh, we could catch it right now. But we target— I can say publicly—we target those species which have potassium channel blocking toxins. Those species which block sodium channels because we have a project on chronic pain. Okay, and so pain and there’s a couple of other toxins which target!

Yeah, fantastic! Now, and just before we get on to questions, we've already got questions flooding in, and I'll get to those very shortly! But just before we do, I kind of covered obviously the fantastic applications of your research and why it's so important, but the other side of it I guess is this side that people mostly associate with venom is that it is deadly! So can we talk a little bit about the different types of venom? You know, there’s jellyfish, there's matter cysts—how does that work compared to like a snake or compared to a scorpion?

Zoltán: Let’s start with jellyfish! I mean, you’ve studied jellyfish before?

Yeah, so basically what we did, you know, my Berkut jellyfish is limit in some sense; it’s limited. But on another sense, it’s quite extensive because we happened to make the largest toxin library coming from that group of any masks in the area where the jellyfish is belonging to.

So we made a library of I think 1.5 million toxins! And that library successfully yielded those novel toxins for ion channels which didn’t have a ligand—a zygon is another molecule we specifically recognized those receptors! But basically, the major difference between jellyfish is that you have lots of small stinging cells and, you know, that gets around your body, you know— like millions of those stinging cells! And that’s how the venom gets into you!

In a snake, you have two fangs and those gonna inject you like a spoonful amount of venom! One of the snakes which has the largest amount of venom is the gaboon viper! And let me tell you a story! I was down in Congo having my siesta in the afternoon, and the bulk of pygmies I mentioned earlier—they run up to me at a lab and told me, “I’m sorry!” And I said, “What the hell is Cocoa poopoo?” You know, “What’s Cocoa? Cocoa poopoo?” You know, it’s the coolest snake in the world, the gaboon viper!

So we were running like I said, “Coco Papa reloj!” The gaboon viper was running into the rainforest deep and then we stopped. I said, “Where is it?” And I was catching snakes since high school, so I’ve seen a couple of snakes and I said, “Where the hell is it?” Then I saw it!

It was so common flashed and we dug it out from the leaf litter in the fey—it’s just like huge, gaboon viper! It was so big that I could not fit the snake head into the tubes I had with me! So what I tried, I got the water bottle, cut off the head of the water bottle, and tried to put the snake head into the water bottle—it will not fit!

It was all big! So what I had to do, I actually—and don’t do this one at home! But what I did was actually hold the snake right behind the head and was just sitting on it like a cowboy, you know, running and riding a horse to restrain the gaboon viper! My helper, who used to be an elephant poacher, but now he reborn and works for the National Park, he cut a small amount of tissue from the end of the tail of the snake because it was so big!

This is, you know, tiny stinging cells, you know, two to a spoonful amount of venom which is injected by a five centimeter, two inches long fangs into your body. So it varies quite in a wide range and what the venom does—the function of the venom is to kill you or immobilize you as quickly as possible because either the snake or other creatures wants to eat you or wants to be protected from you.

So why would I do it? The best way to do this one is to shut down the nervous system, to shut down the system—the how the nerve cells communicate with the muscle cells to contract—because you immobilize! You get immobilized! The second way you shut down the circulation! So, venom gets injected and your whole blood just coagulates, and this again— as I mentioned, it’s not one toxin; it’s like 50, 100, or sometimes more toxins working synergistically in a venom, hand in hand in a venom just to kill you.

This is what happens in your body! How many times I get discussion how soon the venom starts to act! Once you get bitten, the venom starts to act right away the moment it gets injected! And Francie’s target, it drives away! How soon you will see the clinical symptoms of their bite depends on many factors! How much venom has been injected? About what kind of snake was responsible for the bite? Are you a kid or a larger adult? Many, many factors!

Example, I was in Vietnam a lot—in the rainy season which is coming up soon— you’ll go to a hospital and you see patients next to patients by snake bitten by snakes—yeah, you know, respiratory paralysis. They’ve been bitten by a crate—a crate is the deadlier version of the cobra! And there’s no anti-venom in Vietnam, so they paralyze! They cannot breathe; they cannot move—any limb, nothing! Motionless—it’s just absolutely terrifying to see! They are completely conscious; they can hear what you say! They are aware of their surroundings, but they can’t communicate!

Yeah, actually, that was one example when I was seeing these patients and I said, “Well, you know, I’m a scientist; I have the international connection.” So I called up my buddy who is a Hungarian ambassador to Thailand and I said, “Dude, do you have 600 euros on you? Because can you just go buy an anti-venom in Thailand?” We find a Vietnamese airline pilot! Who was—I connected them!

So he tried to bring it to Hanoi! First, it was rejected because it was a liquid, but the second pilot we find was a little bit more inventive. So he was able to bring the liquid anti-venom to Hanoi! We gave it to the patient! Safety saves lives! I had tears in my eyes! I was so happy!

Lizzy: The applications are just incredible! So, from one extreme to another! Hey, it’s Zoltán! We’ve got questions flooding in, so we’re gonna get to a few of those now! Thank you all for your questions if you’re watching live! What an incredible talk this is! I’m just so overcome with the inspiration!

So, first one! Are the sea snakes—are they poisonous? This is an important question, isn’t it, Zoltán?

Zoltán: Yeah, it's well we only deal with venomous snakes and I want to make a difference between poison and venom! The short answer—oh, the short explanation! Poison—you have to lick it; venom—you have to be stung by it! One of the definitions of the venom is that it has to be delivered by a physical trauma, like a fang!

Lizzy: Oh, we seem to have lost sound on Zoltán!

Zoltán: Double get him back!

Lizzy: Oh, he’s back! He’s back! There we go! Yeah, and I think a lot of people are confused between poisonous and venomous! But so there you go, everyone!

And however that being said, was that sea snake venomous? I think some pictures for you guys! And it’s only one of them is, I think, non-venomous snakes— boa constrictor! Because I was just so happy to find one just for—I can relax myself!

Although I think I will be also allergic to their saliva and the venom—it’s there! There is an overlap!

Zoltán: Yeah, and lots of questions! Does venom help cure cancer? You’ve touched on this already! Tell us!

Zoltán: So there is no cancer treating venom toxin in clinical approval right now! But at least there are two toxins which are in clinical trials for cancer! One of them I mentioned is coming from a shrew venom and I think it’s for breast cancer! The second one is coming from a scorpion toxin where this toxin helps to deliver a huge molecular complex to target cancer cells and kill them! So these are two in clinical trials! Hopefully, they will work!

Lizzy: Absolutely fantastic! And how do you identify a venomous snake from a non-venomous snake! Interesting question!

Zoltán: Now, just getting salt on them, sound back!

Okay, because for four weeks in the middle of the almost zone! So I’m not aware of happening and it’s actually good because I’m not disturbed by all of those emails! But the venomous snakes and non-venomous snakes, the major difference is they have fangs! So if you want to be really sure, you know what’s happening, then you catch the snake—you open their mouth and see their fangs, but of course only if you’re an expert herpetologist, you should do this one!

But most of the other cases, you’re able to take a look based on the pattern, the size of the snake, or the shape of the snake! You can tell which one is venomous and which one is non-venomous!

Yes, sometimes it’s much more trickier or you really have to pick up the snake, and you know, in order to identify two different snake species! Most, most of the times people who rely on their pattern as well as the number of scales covering the snake! And so that’s how you say characteristics! If you don’t know, you always treat every snake as a venomous! So don’t suspect that this is okay, a non-venomous! And if you see a venomous snake, do not panic! All you have to do—one, two, three steps backward! You take a picture and off you go!

If you ever get bitten in the field, the best first aid is the mobile phone! That’s the best first aid for a snake bite! You call for help as soon as possible for the hospital! The hospital—yeah! And leave it up to the experts there at any handling or any going nearer!

Absolutely! And can you explain why some snakes spit? Interesting question!

Zoltán: Weiss! I’m sick! Spit! Spit there! Again, I think I'm Adam!

Yeah! I have a good story! So I was trying to photograph mambas! Mambo, Mambo, small green worm was hatching from the egg! Okay, I was in Europe and my friends in South Africa called me and said, "Zoltán, you're in sound!" So happens when you come live from the beautiful meadow back, you know!

So they called me for my colleagues in South Africa! The numbers are hatching or about to hatch! So I sat on a plane, like little eyes—I heard this one in the morning and in like in the afternoon, I was on a plane heading to South Africa! Unfortunately, a long bus didn’t hatch! But we had spitting cobras!

So we were photographing spitting cobras and I was asking them, "So guys, how do we stand with water?" Because the best first aid for spitting cobra bites is lots of water! I said, “We have none!” So we were actually photographing spitting cobras and not having zero water around us!

So you have to be careful because if the venom gets into your eyes, it can cause trouble! I don’t know that the gentleman but somebody, I have a friend of mine, a friend was actually died from a spitting cobra bite! It’s their evolutionary history, you know, behind! So they can spit the venom! You find spitting cobras in Africa and a couple of them are spitting in Asia! But they still can deliver the venom by bite!

So yeah, it's sort of double dangerous! It’s a great wall of defense, you know being able to project that venom! Really good question, really good questions today! I think you’ll agree!

And how do you get samples from spiders?

Zoltán: Response! Spiders! It’s again, so if there are two ways we aim for any kind of tissue because all of the body cells contain DNA, and some of them are easier to handle and some of them not, so whatever we can get!

Sometimes we have to get the venom gland! And if we have to get the venom gland, we have to unfortunately euthanize the animal! But so, either we go for the venom gland or any piece of tissue, for example from snakes! I mentioned the blood, but you can get even DNA sample from a shed piece of skin! So any tissue, just like in humans, any tissue you can get the DNA!

Fantastic! And another good question—do neurotoxic animals contribute to studies for diseases like multiple sclerosis?

Zoltán: So, multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disorder! And in autoimmune disorder, there is a receptor, you know, which is responsible—we couldn’t validate that target! It’s on immune cells! If you can block those receptors specifically, then the understanding is that you can sort of ease the symptoms of the disease!

So we usually come up with a couple molecules from scorpion toxin library, you know which target this receptor, and it could be potentially used in autoimmune disorders! But to develop a drug from toxins, to have the approval dog—I tell you, real-life examples, I think it was from 7 to 24 years or something in that magnitude!

So it’s a huge long process! The average to develop a drug is approximately in ten years! So this is not like it doesn’t work like that! You just go behind the snake, and then two months later, you have a drug! Right? I wish it would be that easy!

Yes, and I guess kind of twofolds—that the toxins are really complex! Also, the disease themselves are really complex and fascinating stuff!

And got a question here. We’re actually running out of time! But, does that mean a venomous animal from one region is more effective in treating disease from that same region?

Zoltán: That’s interesting! Because there’s so much diversity of animal species and toxins, nobody really knows that which one is good! So, leading heart attack medications used all over the world are coming from the pygmy rattlesnake venom—a snake which is not really toxic!

I mean, don’t get bitten! You have to treat all venomous animals as potentially can kill you! But it’s still, in a pygmy rattlesnake in Florida and in the Southeast US, it’s not really considered to be a really deadly snake! But still, that snake venom gave us one of the major heart attack medications!

Or the Gila monster venom from Arizona! Again, it’s the Gila monster! If somebody gets bitten by a Gila monster, chances are you’re gonna die, it’s very slim! Very many more don’t get bitten because you could die from it! But that venom, oh, it’s the meadow viper!

I’m guessing it’s causing issues with our sound! Hopefully, we’ll get Zoltán back just in a moment! But this is part of it, guys—this is what happens when you have a live in the field!

Now, hey, it’s Alton, right? Zoltán gets his audio back! I mean, thank you all for your questions, firstly, because they are actually incredible! And what a fascinating topic, you know, thinking not only about the pale or a venom and how we know it so well in the natural world, in terms of it being deadly and, you know, so efficient in how it kills, but then how we can use it to save lives!

I bet you guys didn’t think about that! And it’s something that I think to the general public is often overlooked! But of course, scientists like Zoltán—they really use that kind of knowledge and expertise to be able to apply it to our world!

And it’s just kind of unfathomable!

Zoltán, how you doing with the audio? Hopefully we can get here!

Okay, back, back, back! Ready! This is so good! Because we have still a few more questions! But you, you were saying?

Zoltán: Gone! And I guess, to kind of summarize that it’s not limited to geographical location, is it? For example, in Sudan, you wouldn’t have a lot of species with venom that is good for disease compared to somewhere else!

Yeah, so it’s—I mentioned the example that that major heart attack medication and the diabetes medication come from a snake which is not very toxic. Most people would sing the more toxic snake is better science, though that doesn’t work like that!

It’s similar to geographical distribution. Nobody knows really where you would find that particular toxin which targets that receptor! Now, if you know that you’re looking for targeting a potassium channel and you know which kind of animals then to have potassium channel blocking toxins in their venom, then you can go to those places!

Let’s say we broke out with scorpion toxins and you know for scorpions, you don’t go to Scandinavia! You go to the Sahara! You go to Asia—right?

Yeah, totally!

That’s fantastic! Okay, one more question! Is there any reference guide you recommend in spotting dangerous creatures for travelers? And maybe you can recommend, you know, venomous species or some of your favorite places that you’ve been, so like a great guide that you could recommend or, you know, a potential book for or just kind of top tips for actually spotting these venomous species if you’re out and about?

Zoltán: Well, if you go to a new location, let’s say you go to, I don’t know, Australia, South Africa, or India! I would just recommend buying a—it’s hard!

Because there are many books which are saying venomous animals of Cameroon so there are snakes of East Africa! but like which covers all of the venomous animals—it's not that easy to find! For Southwest US, Arizona—and in neighboring states for Australia, yes, you have plenty of books like that!

So I would just research the Internet—venomous creatures and wherever you go! But don’t be afraid! You know, the chances of somebody getting bitten or stung by a scorpion, snakes, jellyfish— it’s not impossible or not zero, but it’s extremely minimal! You know, if you’re not chasing them! If you’re unlucky, just go to the dock, use your mobile phone and go to the doctors as soon as possible!

There we are! From Zoltán Takács himself! And I will also say if you are heading out in these environments, get to know all the animals—non-venomous and venomous—just to give yourself a good idea of that environment!

It’s awesome! This has been an absolute joy! Thank you ever so much for coming on live!

Zoltán: Thank you very much!

Lizzy: You’ve been fantastic! And this has been so fascinating! And of course, thank you all for tuning in live today! We powered through just the minor technical issues there, but remember, Zoltán is coming to us live from in the field with the beautiful meadow viper!

So again, thank you all for watching! We’ll see you again next week here on the channel! Bye!