Researchers have been able to successfully reproduce a snake anti-venom in the lab; it is based on a peptide found in opossums that makes them immune to the lethal poison.

Opossums could be the key to preventing thousands of snake bite fatalities around the world.

A team has successfully developed an antidote treatment based on the mammals’ immunity to snake venom. 

Researchers were able to successfully reproduce the poison-neutralizing peptide previously identified in the 1990s in a lab and use it to successfully protect against venom from two species of snakes injected into mice.

Unlike current antidotes that are typically processed using horses and often produce negative reactions in patients, the peptide from opossums can be made through the E. coli bacteria which appear to cause