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Sea anemones use venomous stinging tentacles to stun their prey, but one component of that venom is being used by researchers to treat the debilitating effects of Multiple Sclerosis (MS).

A new class of drug treatment is about to commence clinical trials, as the result of a decade-long investigation by Professor Ray Norton, from the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences and his collaborators, who in the mid 1990s found a component of venom called ShK in the Caribbean sea anemone.

The researchers found ShK blocks the Kv1.3 potassium channel located in white blood cells, known as T-cells, which are known to produce nerve damage in MS, one of the most common and debilitating diseases of the nervous system.

Professor Norton has since collaborated with a team of scientists in the United States investigating potassium channels as targets for the development of novel immunosuppressive agents.

With potassium channels controlling all sorts of key functions in the human body, developing a drug without unwanted side effects would have been impossible had it not turned out that the Kv1.3 potassium channel is found only on T-cells and in the nose. Because of this limited distribution, the researchers were able to develop a highly selective immune suppressant derived from the sea anemone peptide.... Read More - http://www.msrc.co.uk/index.cfm/fuseact ... ageid/1397

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I believe these researchers are on the right trail but looking up the wrong tree. The reason various types of poison and venom are partially successful against MS is that they kill or inhibit the herpes virus in it's various forms.



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