Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Dear Hot People;
I'm not expanding into academia ... I just wanted to take a change to post a reference to something in a language that I don't understand.
Link to full item at the URL.
Cheers
Wes
Single-Bead-Based Immunofluorescence Assay for Snake Venom Detection

I won't pretend to follow all of it, but the last sentence of the abstract makes me wonder about it's usefulness.

"The detection could be completed within 3 h."
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What goes up must come down...unless it exceeds escape velocity.

Wes, I am not a biochemist. Basically this is a method for identfying which species of snake venom is present. Today in many places in the world they use monovalent antivenoms. The antivenom only works for one particular species. Without the snake in hand this can be very difficult to determine. So this is a test that binds specific antibodies to the venom and then you add another flourecent reagent to bind with the already bound venom-antivenom complex. This shows up under the microscope and now you know if the venom was from your particular species. I did not read the entire article...but at some point this could lead to a mixture of several species antibodies that would flouoresce with a different colored tag for each species. I know that they have at least a some sort of test in Australia for indentify the species from their venom. There are some venom researchers on here that will do a much better job!
Bob H