Forbes.com: Amylin's Gila Monster Of A Diabetes Drug: Seven years ago, San Diego's Amylin Pharmaceuticals licensed the rights to a potential diabetes drug derived from the saliva of the venomous Gila monster lizard. [...] Exenatide's potential is very real. The medicine lowers blood sugar, but it appears to act only when blood glucose levels rise too high--meaning that patients are much less likely to suffer low blood sugar as a result of taking the drug. It also may help patients lose weight. Current trials are designed to show that it works on top of existing medicines used to treat Type 2 diabetes, a condition in which people stop being able to control the amount of sugar in their blood. Historically, it has been a disease of overweight adults, although patients are getting younger. It affects about 16 million people.
Well, leaving aside the fact that one of the first offlabel commercial uses is almost certainly going to be as a weight loss drug ...
Having a substance which makes diabetes more controllable, without tripping people over into low blood sugar states, can only be a good thing. But at the same time, you just wonder ... what on earth made the researchers think of this? What in heavens name made them think, "Yeah! Lizard spit! That's the ticket! You hardly ever see diabetic gila monsters!"
Just how easy is this drug to synthesize, anyway? I just have this vision, when the drug starts commercial production, of Amylin putting out an employment call for people willing to squeeze lizard jaws to make them spit.
Posted by iain at August 27, 2003 10:46 AMComments
Read enough stories about innovative scientific techniques, and you really start to think these scientist fellows are off their rocker. I specifically remember reading an article a few years ago about how scientists had figured out a way to help stroke victims rocover better by injecting testicle cells into the victim's brain. Reading that article, I was struck by the same questions you were... then again, whenever someone sees a stroke victim, their first thought is "testicles!", right?
Posted by Mark at September 3, 2003 10:44 AMWell, the connection of strokes to testicles might be this: testicles contain germ-line cells to make sperm, and this proabbly contain stem cells. Stem cells can (theoretically) regenerate any type of cell, including nervous tissue. There's your link.
As for the lizard spit, I haven't read the relavent article in the research journal, but possibly the connection was made when some scientist studying lizards (there are strange people out there theat will study almost anything..), found that a compound in lizard saliva has an affect on some enzyme complex (possibly in the lizard itself, or having to do with the function of the compound in lizard saliva, such as possibly an anti-clotting factor), and then some other scientist looking for information on this enzyme (which possibly was known to be involved in blood-sugar regulation) saw this and put two and two together. Most likely, someone did not simply thing "lizard spit and diabetes", but thought about the underlying biochemical mechanisms of blood-sugar regulation.
Posted by Jim Witte at September 4, 2003 01:59 PM
