Dutch biologist Mátyás Bittenbinder developed new, non-animal methods to investigate tissue-damaging snake venom. In this way, he hopes to contribute to solutions for victims. Millions of people are bitten by venomous snakes every year. Of these, 400,000 are left with permanent damage. Mátyás will defend his findings on Oct. 30 during his doctoral dissertation at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam before supervisor Prof. Dr. Freek Vonk and Dr. Jeroen Kool.
Poisonouscocktail
Snake venom consists of toxins that affect the body in different ways. The best known toxins are neurotoxins and hemotoxins. Neurotoxins affect the nervous system and can, for example, paralyze the nerves around the heart. Hemotoxins affect blood and cause blood clots or prevent it from clotting, which prevents your heart from pumping blood properly. Both toxins can be deadly to humans. If you survive the bite, you're not there yet. Toxins also often damage physical tissue, which can lead to lifelong physical injuries, such as blindness, kidney damage and amputation.
Snake venomclose up
For the past four years, Mátyás Bittenbinder has focused on the hemotoxic toxin. By developing new methods, he and his colleagues were able to see how different types of venom attack cells. For example, there are poisons that destroy blood vessel cells, and still others that break down muscle cells ruthlessly.
To see exactly which of the compounds in the venom cause damage in the cells, they used sophisticated separation techniques to study the individual components of the venom. In this way, they were able to gain precise insight into the “ingredients” of this venom cocktail. “When we better understand what substances are in snake venom, we also know better how to neutralize them,” Bittenbinder explains.
To further mimic the conditions inside the body, the team developed an “organ-on-chip” model that functions like a human blood vessel. “The advantage of such a blood vessel model for venom research is that it takes into account several important influences the body has to deal with.” This is the first time snake venom has been studied in this way. An added advantage is also that no laboratory animals are needed for this research. Mátyás explains his findings in this video.
Venomwith a purpose
Mátyás hopes the results of his dissertation will contribute to follow-up research on venomous snake bites to ultimately drastically reduce the number of snake bite victims who are left with permanent injuries. Mátyás' doctoral research is complete, but he is far from finished with animals and their venom. In the future, he plans to research other venomous animals such as jellyfish, scorpions and the komodo dragon. Here he also hopes to gain knowledge about substances from venom that can be used in medication.
Between laband media
Mátyás is by now a familiar face on Dutch television. Combining PhD and being a TV personality is not easy, but for Mátyás it is very important. “Making people enthusiastic about animals, plants and science is what I like best” and he does that on TV like with Klokhuis, Humberto or De Slimste Mens, but also in other ways. During his PhD he wrote two children's books, became an ambassador for the WWF and presented the Gala of Biodiversity where King Willem Alexander was one of the attendees.
Moreinformation
- Supporting image and film material can be found in this press kit. Credits are in the file names; please credit them.
- For more information on the ‘organ-on-chip’ model, see our earlier press release.
- For questions about the study: Mátyás Bittenbinder. matyas.bittenbinder@naturalis.nl
- For general questions about this press release: the Naturalis Communications Department. +31 (0)71 - 7519 648 or communicatie@naturalis.nl.