Forget aspirin. How about tarantula venom to ease your pain? - CNET

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If you're anything like me, you've spent most of your life trying to avoid tarantula venom. In the future, you may be reaching for the stuff.

In recent years, scientists have identified a component of tarantula venom that they say could one day ease your headache, backache or other body ache. That peptide toxin, called ProTx-II, could make for an ideal painkiller due to its high potency and the way it selectively inhibits pain receptors in the brain, researchers say. Peptides, like proteins, are chains of amino acids, but the molecules are smaller.

Scientists have already determined that ProTx-II binds to Nav 1.7, an important pain receptor. In the latest look at the link between creepy crawlies' venom and your brain, scientists from Australia's University of Queensland are using 3D imaging to explore exactly how ProTx-II from the Peruvian green velvet tarantula binds with brain cell membranes to inhibit pain.

They presented their findings at the Biophysical Society's 60th annual meeting, currently being held in Los Angeles, and hope their research could lead to an alteative to ineffective painkillers and opioids such as OxyContin, Percocet and Vicodin that can cause extreme drowsiness and be highly addictive.