The challenge of protecting against all venomous coral snakes

Every year, more than 2,400 people living in North or South America get bitten by coral snakes. Although rarely lethal, the snakes' neurotoxic venom can cause muscle weakness, paralysis, and respiratory failure. Existing antivenoms target the toxins expressed by only some of the 70–80 species of coral snakes found in the Americas, says Andreas Hougaard Laustsen-Kiel, an antivenom researcher at the Technical University of Denmark. So his team has been working toward developing an antivenom that's effective against more species. In a recent study, they've identified antibodies that could together avert death in mice injected with venom from two coral snake species ( Nat. Commun. 2024, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-48539-z ). The team first designed a compound with a sequence similar to several three-finger toxins (3FTxs)—key components of all coral snake venom. The researchers then used a library of antibodies produced by an alpaca and a llama injected with low doses of