Bleeding during a surgery can quickly turn disastrous. This is especially true if patients are given anti-coagulants, as they often are during surgeries. This can thin patients’ blood and let them bleed more freely.
But now, a new material has been found to stop this bleeding, and it’s a combination of a nanofiber hydrogel and a special ingredient: snake venom.
The gel takes venom from two species of South American pit vipers. The venom is called batroxobin. When injected in a wound, it can conform to that wound and clot blood within as little as six seconds.
People have known that batroxobin is a coagulant since 1936. But this is the first time it’s been able to be used in such an effective form.
It’s especially effective because it’ll be used with a particularly powerful blood thinner, called heparin, used in surgery, one that most blood clotting agents don’t work against. Many of the current ones work too slowly to stop significant bleeding.
Jeffrey Hartgerink, a chemist at Rice University, said this is what matters about the discovery. “There’s a lot of different things that can trigger blood coagulation, but when you’re on heparin, most of them don’t work, or they work slowly or poorly. That obviously causes problems when you’re bleeding.”
This snake venom mixture will be so effective that doctors can even use it as a preventative measure. If they think they’ll need blood to clot, they can use it before the bleeding even starts.
This is great news for surgeons, as it’ll make dangerous complications much less likely. And for those of us who have to be on an operating table one day, this gel may make all the difference.
But really, it’s just pretty cool. “It’s interesting that you can take something so deadly and turn it into something that has the potential to save lives,” said Hartgerink.
