What could kill you and save you? A snail.

Biochemist Mandë Holford gives us some insight into potential cures derived from killer cone snail venom.

These aren’t your ordinary garden snails. Tiny cone snails may boast delicate and gorgeous shells, but they pack a powerful — and lethal — punch. The snails’ venom can be fatal to various fish and even humans. But it could also offer a potential cure.

Mandë Holford, a biochemist at Hunter College and the American Museum of Natural History, works with a team to investigate the snails’ venom and look for compounds that could be used to treat pain and cancer. Ancient cultures have traditionally used their natural environment to look for cures for the things that ail them, she explains. Now, researchers are investigating how “nature’s deadliest cocktail” could create new pathways for treating old problems.

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Questions

• Why are shell collections, like the ones that museums have curated over time, important tools for learning about biodiversity and changes in ecosystems?
• Think about the cone snail. Why is their venom and venom delivery system advantageous? Why do they need it for catching fish?

• According to Mandë Holford, cone snails have upwards of 200 different peptides in their venom arsenal. Do you think every “harpoon” contains the same mix of peptides? Why do you think cone snails flood the system of their prey with so many different peptides?
• Holford’s lab isolates peptides from snail venom and then works to determine how those peptides interact with human cells. Why are discoveries like this important for advancing modern medicine?
• Human activity causes a decline in biodiversity each year. Based on the information you learned about cone snail venom, what is one argument you could make to lawmakers to take steps to protect marine biodiversity?
• Mandë Holford mentions that it is not only new drugs, but new pathways and new models for looking at disease and disorders. What does she mean by pathways and models?

Activity Suggestions

• Have students use this activity from the Shape of Life to study the elaborately whorled, sculpted, and ornamented shells of gastropods not as objects of beauty, but as artifacts born of an evolutionary tradeoff.
• Curious about snails? Have your students get to know the snails that live in your area using a modified version of these investigations from the Montana Agricultural Experiment Station (MAES). Be sure to get a book that lists local species of snails. You might want to use Project Noah to have students report their findings and get help with species identification.

Additional Resources

• For over 70 years, no one had seen the oblong rocksnail and it was declared extinct. But one day in the spring of 2011, biology grad student Nathan Whelan picked up a tiny rock and got a big surprise.
• Check out more videos from Science Friday’s “Breakthrough: Portraits of Women in Science” series produced with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Thanks to Ariel Zych.

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