According to the Australian Venom Research Unit, in terms of actual venom, the most toxic of all is the inland taipan ( Oxyuranus microlepidotus), or fierce snake, which inhabits central east Australia. Pinpointing precisely which are the world’s most venomous snake species is tricky. Along with Freide – and the precious antibodies in his blood – Glanville is working to produce his universal anti-venom. Now, through his work with Centivax, he hopes eventually to rid the world of the effects of pathogens altogether. Later he studied immuno-genetics and computational biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and computational immunology at Stanford University. Glanville, also American, was brought up in the 1990s in a fairly remote village in Guatemala during that country’s civil war, where he witnessed locals, deprived of medicine, suffering needlessly from illness and disease. The resulting publicity brought him to the attention of immuno-engineer Jacob Glanville, the brains behind Centivax. I had enough immunity for one bite, but not for two. “Two cobra bites, back to back, within one hour,” Friede remembers. But then, just an hour later, he was handling a monocled cobra which lashed out and sank fangs into his right bicep. Already fortified with a certain immunity, Friede was little affected. While at home in Wisconsin, as he was milking his pet Egyptian cobra, the reptile twisted round and bit his finger. It was in 2001 that Friede received his first potentially lethal bite – although not intentionally. “It was hard because there’s no book on it,” he tells National Geographic (UK.) “So I figured it out by taking lots of notes and lots of photos.” “I basically died.” He was careful to dilute the venom, just as commercial manufacturers do when they extract anti-bodies from horses or sheep to produce anti-venom. He started milking his pet snakes for their venom before repeatedly injecting himself with it. The theory being that, by stimulating his body to produce antibodies in response to the toxin, he may be physically better-equipped to cope when bitten in future. (See pictures of some of the world's most extraordinary snakes.)Ĭonstantly at risk of being envenomed, Friede realised he needed somehow to develop an immunity. Cobras, mambas, taipans, rattlesnakes – to the chagrin of his parents, his collection grew and grew. This led to keeping far more venomous snakes as pets in vivaria at home. ![]() ![]() As a high-school kid he would scour the Wisconsin countryside for garter snakes, which are only mildly toxic. But when he first started his masochistic hobby, he was merely an amateur snake collector. Nowadays, Friede, a 53-year-old former truck mechanic from Wisconsin, is director of herpetology at Californian vaccination research company Centivax, which is attempting to produce a universal anti-venom for all the world’s most lethal snakes. Lethal cobras, mambas, vipers, taipans, rattlesnakes and kraits – he has willingly offered himself up to the fangs of all, soliciting what could be a potentially fatal bite from some of the most feared animals on the planet. On nearly every occasion, he has positively encouraged it. TIM FRIEDE HAS BEEN BITTEN by venomous snakes more than 200 times.
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