Venom's Virtue
by Jim Puzzanghera
San Jose Mercury News

November 18, 1997

The main idea of this article is how poison can be medicine, too. Some poisons kill bad bacteria but don't kill good ones, if used correctly.

The same poison that is used by creatures to kill their prey is soon to be used as medicine! It may help prevent brain damage from stroke and treat diabetes. The West African tarantula could have a key role in developing new treatments for brain and neurological disorders. Venom is a rich source of molecules. Venom of the Cameroon red tarantula is the first substance that specifically blocks another type of calcium channel in the brain and nervous system.

I think that it is wonderful and exciting that venom can kill but also cure. It's where I never would have thought a cure could come from. I learned that no thing is what it seems, and that a lot more research on venom was going on than average people know about. There are a lot of things that have to happen before the scientists test it. They get the poison from the people who take it out of spiders, who get the spiders from people who raise them. I think that it's amazing that the deadliest creatures can make a cure for anything at all!