Qld biotech to treat heart disease with taipan venom

Researchers have discovered that taipan venom contains potent peptides that may prevent death from congestive heart disease.

Prof Paul Alewood's research team at the University of Queensland's Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) has isolated a unique set of highly active peptides from taipan venom that are effective at easing the stress on overloaded hearts.

Alewood's team is collaborating with Assoc Prof Geoffrey Head's research group at Melbourne's Baker Heart Research Institute.

The molecules are being commercialised by IMB spinoff ElaCor, a collaborative venture between the IMB's commercialisation company, IMBcor, and the Baker Institute.

The Queensland government has named Elacor as one of three new biotech companies that have been awarded an Innovation Start-up Scheme (ISUS) grant to develop its technology to clinical trial stage.

ElaCor is keeping the identity and the mode of action of its taipan venom peptides a commercial secret.

Congestive heart failure is typically a result of high blood pressure or occluded arteries, which result in back-pressure that causes the heart to enlarge and beat inefficiently.

The discovery is particularly ironic, as before the former Commonwealth Serum Laboratories developed an effective anti-venom to the bite of the taipan nearly half a decade ago, a bite from the big honey-coloured snake was a virtual guarantee of rapid heart failure and death.