The secrets of spider venom Michel Dugon

well hello this is Sophie it’s it’s it’s

alright don’t worry everything’s gonna

be fine

there are some people on the balcony

that are very happy to be out there now

so this is Sophie not Sophia no Sophie

now she has a French name now you wonder

why so Sophie for most people is the

incarnation of terror really she’s far

too leggy she’s far too hairy and she’s

far too big to ever be trusted but to me

Sophie is a fantastic feat of

bioengineering you see Sophie is a

testimony to all those creatures that

have managed to survive since the

beginning of times all those animals

that have managed to have offspring

generation after generation until this

day you see over 1 billion years ago the

first primitive cells have started to

evolve on this planet he took spiders

430 million years to become what they

are now one of the most versatile one of

the most diverse and one of the most

evolved group of predators to ever walk

this earth it’s actually quite sporty to

give a speech while wrangling a

tarantula I have to say so we shouldn’t

forget that Sophie and in fact all of us

we all are a testimony to all those

ruthless battles that actually we’re won

consistently by all our ancestors all

our predecessors in fact all of us every

single one of one of you is in fact and

interrupted 1 billion years old success

story and in the case of Sophie that

success is partly due to what she has in

chess just on the rise in there she has

a pair of venom glands that are attached

to a pair of fangs and those fangs are

folded into a mouth

so without those fangs and without this

venom Sophie would have never managed to

survive

now many animals have evolved to venom

systems in order to survive nowadays any

species of venomous snakes any species

of spider any species of scorpion has

its own venom signature if you want made

out of dozen if not hundreds chemical

compounds and all of those compounds

have evolved purely for one purpose

disable and eventually kill now venom

can actually act in many different ways

venom believe me can make you feel pains

that you’ve never felt before venom can

also make your heart stop within minutes

or it can turn your blood into jelly

venom can also paralyze you almost

instantly or it can just eat your flesh

away like acid now all these pretty

gruesome stories I know but me to me

it’s kind of music to my ears it’s what

I love so why is that well it’s not

because I’m a nutcase no just imaging

just imaging what we could do if we

could harvest all those sir powerful

compounds and use them to our benefit

that would be amazing right what if we

could I don’t know produce new

antibiotics with those venom what if we

could actually help people that are

suffering from diabetes or hypertension

well in fact all those applications are

already being developed by scientists

just like me

everywhere around the world as I speak

you see hypertension is actually treated

regularly with a medication that has

been developed from the toxin that is

produced by a South American Viper

people that have type 2 diabetes can be

monitored using actually the toxin

produced by a lizard from North America

and in hospitals all around the world a

new protocol is being developed to use a

toxin from a marine snail for

anesthetics

you see venom is that kind of huge

library of venom of chemical compounds

that are available to us that are

produced by hundreds of thousands of

life creatures and sorry she just wants

to go for a little walk

spider saloon actually thought to

produce over 10 million different kinds

of compounds with potential therapeutic

application ten millions and do you know

how many scientists actually have

managed to study so far about 0.01

percent so that mean that there is still

99.99% of all those compounds that are

out there completely unknown and are

just waiting to be harvested and tested

which is fantastic you see so far

scientists have concentrated efforts on

very charismatic very dangerous animals

Vipers and cobras or scorpions and black

widows but what about all those little

birds that we have actually are all

around us you know like that spider that

leaves behind your couch you know the

one that decide to just shoot through

the floor when you’re watching TV and

freak you out you have that one at home

as well

well what about those guys do they

actually produce some kind of amazing

compound in their tiny body as well

well our honest answer a few months ago

would have been we have no clue but now

that my students and myself has started

to look into it I can tell you those

guys actually are producing very very

interesting compounds and I’m going to

tell you more about that in a second but

first I would like to tell you more

about this we are looking into it how

does one look into it well first of all

my students and I have to capture a lot

of spiders so how do we do that well

you’d be surprised

once one start to look one finds a lot

of spiders they actually live everywhere

around us within a couple of hours we

are capable of CAP catching maybe two

three four hundred spiders and we

bring them back to my laboratory and we

house each of them in its own individual

home and we give each of them a little

meal so now I know what you’re thinking

I think these guys nuts he has a spider

B&B at work no no it’s not exactly that

and it’s not the kind of venture I would

I would advise you to start no once we

are done with that we wait a few days

and then we anesthetize the spiders once

they’re asleep we run a tiny little

electric current through the body and

that contracts their venom glands then

under a microscope we can feel tiny

little droplets of venom appearing so we

take a hair thin glass tube a capillary

and we collect the tiny droplets then we

take the spider and we put it back into

its home and we start again with another

one because spiders are completely

unharmed during the process it means

that a few days later once they’ve

produced a little bit of venom again and

that they’ve recovered we can release

them back in the wild it takes literally

hundreds of spiders to just produce the

equivalent of one raindrop of venom so

that drop is incredibly precious to us

and once we have it we freeze it and we

then pass it in a machine that will

separate and purify every chemical

compound that is in that venom we’re

speaking about tiny amounts we are

actually speaking about tenth of a

millionth of a liter of compound but we

can dilute that compound

several thousand times in its own volume

of water and then test it against a

whole range of nasty stuff like cancer

cells or bacteria and this this is when

the very exciting part of my job starts

because this is pure scientific gambling

it’s kind of Las Vegas baby for me it’s

we spent so many hours so much resources

so much time trying to get those

compounds ready and then we test them

and most of the time nothing happens

nothing at all but once in a while just

once in a while we

get that particular compound that has

absolutely amazing effect that’s the

jackpot and when I’m saying that

actually I should take out something

else from my pocket be afraid be very

afraid now in that little tube I have

actually a very common spider the kind

of spiders that you could find in your

shed that you could find in your

basement or that you could find in your

sewer pipe understand in your toilet now

that little spider happens to produce

amazingly powerful antimicrobial

compounds it is even capable of killing

those drug resistant bacteria that are

giving us so much trouble that are often

making media headlines now honestly if I

was living in new sewer pipe I’d produce

antibiotics too but that little spider

actually may hold the answer to a very

very serious concern we have you see

around the world every single day about

1,700 people died because of

antimicrobial resistant infections

multiply that by 365 and you’re reaching

the staggering number of 700,000 people

dead every single year because

antibiotics that were efficient 30 20 or

10 years ago are not capable of killing

very common bugs the reality is that the

world is running out of antibiotics and

the pharmaceutical industry does not

have any answer actually any weapon to

address that concern you see 30 years

ago you could consider that 10 to 15 new

kinds of antibiotics would hit the

market every couple of years do you know

how many of them hit the market in the

past five years - the reality is that if

we continue this way we are few decades

away to be completely helpless in front

of infections just like we were before

the discovery of penicillin 90 years ago

so you see the reality is that we are at

war against an invisible enemy that

adapts and evolves a lot quicker than we

and in that war this little spider might

be one of a greatest secret weapon just

half a millionth of a liter of a venom

diluted 10,000 times is still capable of

killing most bacteria that are resistant

to any other kind of antibiotics it’s

absolutely amazing

every time I repeat this experiment I

just wonder how is that possible how

many other possibilities and secrets all

siblings do actually have what kind of

wonderful product can we really find out

if we care to look so when people ask me

are bugs really the future of

therapeutic drugs my answer is well I

really believe that they do all some key

answers and we need to give ourselves

really the means to investigate them so

when you head back home later tonight

and that you see that spider in the

corner of your own don’t squash it

just look at it admire it and remember

that it is an absolutely fantastic

creature a pure product of evolution and

that maybe that very spider one day

we’ll all the answer will hold the key

to your very own survival you see she’s

not so insignificant anymore now is she

thank you

[Applause]