Animal Research on Snakes and Mice Point Toward Possible Heart Treatment

So, opponents of animal research: Should we not investigate the factors in snakes that make their hearts so powerful?  If so, we might miss out on some very important knowledge. From the AFP story:

The secret to the giant Burmese python’s success is in a massive amount of fatty acids that circulate in the snake’s blood after eating a meal, which could be as big as a deer, according to the study in the journal Science. Scientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder found that as the snake starts digesting its catch, natural oils and fats called triglycerides spike by more than 50 times the usual level. But there is no fat deposited in the snake’s heart, due to the activation of a key enzyme that protects the thumping organ as it grows in mass by as much as 40 percent in the first few days after a meal.

Scientists identified the chemical composition of the python’s blood after eating, and injected either the fed python’s plasma or a mixture devised to imitate it into pythons that were fasting. “In both cases, the pythons showed increased heart growth and indicators of cardiac health,” said the study… Researchers then tried the experiment on mice, and found that mice injected with either fed python plasma or the fatty acid mixture showed the same results. “It was remarkable that the fatty acids identified in the plasma-fed pythons could actually stimulate healthy heart growth in mice,” said researcher Brooke Harrison. Researcher Cecilia Riquelme said the next step is to figure out how the concoction works so that it may be one day adapted for use in people.

This is a good example of the kind of basic biological knowledge that could not be accomplished with computer programs or cell lines.  Animal research is a necessary and respectable enterprise from which everyone who is reading these words has benefited in ways that cannot be quantified.