Cardiologist Peter Macdonald of the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute in Darlinghurst is conducting extensive research with experts from the University of Queensland to find out if the venom from funnel-web spiders could become a life-saving treatment for heart attacks.
Whilst the research is still in its early stages, the heart expert believes that their work has the potential to help first responders during emergency situations. If such a treatment exists, it can significantly increase the chances of a person having a stroke or a heart attack recover with minimal damage to the organs.
The study is also promising for heart transplants as the treatment could improve the quality of donor hearts. Dr Macdonald said that when a donor heart stops beating 30 minutes before the retrieval, it can no longer be viable. Their work hopes to find ways to buy more time before cell death kicks in.
Funnel-web spiders, which are abundant on Fraser Island, produce the deadliest venoms among other species in the world but within this venom is a protein called Hi1a that could block acid-sensing ion channels in the heart to prevent cell death and improve a human’s chances of surviving an attack.
“Despite decades of research, no one has been able to develop a drug that stops this death signal in heart cells, which is one of the reasons why heart disease continues to be the leading cause of death in the world,” Dr Nathan Palpant of UQ’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) said.
Professor Garry Jennings of The Heart Foundation is supportive of the study, despite admitting that he’s not fond of the spiders like most people. He sees that a treatment could be ready in five to 10 years. However, because of COVID-19, it’s now possible for candidate drugs to be accelerated for production at a faster pace.
The experts published their study in the journal Circulation.
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