Artificial intelligence (AI) is widening its web. For the worse, some fear. But mostly for the better, the Nobel Academy claimed, awarding its 2024 chemistry and physics prizes to researchers who have made breakthroughs in these two fields thanks to AI. Now, on Wednesday, January 15, one of them has published an article in the journal Nature, promising a "major" breakthrough in the development of antivenoms. David Baker's team at the University of Washington and Timothy Patrick Jenkins' team at the Technical University of Denmark have created synthetic proteins that neutralize the main deadly toxins injected by snakes of the cobra family. Achieved in record time, it's a feat that could eventually revolutionize the manufacture of anti-bite serums.

Ever since Frenchmen Césaire Phisalix and Albert Calmette developed the first antidote for viper bites in 1894, the principle has remained unchanged. Diluted snake venom is injected into a large animal, usually a horse. The horse then produces antibodies. Once sanitized, they are administered to a human following a bite, to combat the toxins injected by the reptile. It's a cumbersome, time-consuming and costly process. Researchers therefore set out to design antivenoms without using animals.

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