Wow - new use for vampire Bat saliva!

Medicine & Biotech Forum

I just heard today that "they" are milking the saliva from Vampire Bats which has a unique chemical compound that, unlike anything else ever seen, has the ability to prevent blood from coagulating and break up blood clots. This allows the bats to drink the blood of their prey without the blood clotting and sealing up the drain spouts while feeding.

I wonder why it took them so long to realize that it is the perfect agent to treat stroke victims.. apparently the stuff has restored mobility and returned function to parts of stroke victims brains - sounds like a pretty remarkable break-through! Now all they need to do is figure out how it works and synthesize it..

And with the way these things work, that will only take 10 years as they continue their research, develop a solution and await approval.

Well, we all know the FDA is here for our protection, but it does, indeed seem to get in the way of progress sometimes (that and most government / regulatory commissions I imagine). They certainly can't prevent researchers from goung international though. U.S. is a big market for just about anything, but where preventiveness arises, it's certainly not the ONLY market. I think it's funny that every time the govt. tries to enforce some obscure opinion (like "stem cell research and cloning is bad!" ) the research simply leaves the country and away with it goes our smartest scientists and researchers - way to scare off out societal elite, govt'!

Anyway.. all that's to say is that if there's too much resistance here, they could easily take this research to Europe / Asia / Africa to perform human trials and prove the feasibility without being forced to hold ten years for approval..

I thought mossies had the same type of substance. They inject their 'poison' in order to not have the blood clot while their drinking it, right? So we might theoretically actually find a use for the pests! (could you imagine mossy farms? and what if one broke open? Jikes!)