COLUMNISTThursday, April 14, 2005
Alejandro Rooney hopes to save lives with snakes.
Huge, poisonous snakes.
Rooney, a Peoria geneticist, is an adviser to an ongoing study of king cobras, rattlesnakes, death adders and other slithering beasties indigenous to Australia. Part of the project aims to find venom used in new drugs for heart problems and other ailments.
The irony is not lost on Rooney: Man's most ancient enemy has a positive purpose.
"You never know where science will take you," Rooney says.
Rooney, 34, is a microbiologist at the National Center for Agricultural Utilization of Research. He analyzes the effect of toxins on crops and food.
But in his free time, he's into snakes.
Actually, Rooney doesn't mess with the critters. He does all of his work via computer.
"It's science-geek stuff," he says with a smile.
But without his help, his pal Bryan Fry would be just another thrill-seeker.
Fry, also 34, was born in America but grew up in Australia. A hunter of deadly snakes in the Outback, he's been the subject of colorful profiles in The New York Times and National Geographic.
"Bryan is kind of like a cross between Crocodile Dundee and Steve Irwin," Rooney says.
Rooney first encountered the world of venomous snakes while at Mississippi State University. There, from 2000 to 2002, the Ohio native worked as assistant professor of biological sciences.
One day, he heard about Fry.
"We had a mutual friend who worked on cobras," Rooney says.
The friend set up the collaboration. Fry would collect the snakes, milk their venom and perform lab tests. He'd send the data to Rooney for analysis.
But their friend died before the project progressed very far.
"He got bit by a venomous cobra in Burma," Rooney says. "It's dangerous work."
From his end, Rooney traces the evolution of venom. It's complicated, but he essentially groups snake families according to venom similarities.
Within this study, Rooney and Fry pinpoint venom groups with medical applications.
For instance, the bite of the inland taipan immediately causes a drop in blood pressure. More study could cull venom chemicals that could relax blood vessels - and therefore boost blood flow for patients with congestive heart failure.
Venom-based drugs aren't entirely new. But the field is ready to explode. With vast advances in computer and genetics technology, Frey can perform thousands of venom analyses a month. Fifteen years ago, he might've been able to do three a month.
Plus, the pair has made other new discoveries. In snakes that scientists once thought were non-poisonous, Rooney and Fry found venom.
For instance, they found that the garter snake, indigenous to all of Illinois, does have venom. But the concentration is only strong enough to slow a small frog or earthworm.
Yet Rooney says people need not worry about garter venom: "It's in such a tiny amount, nothing will happen."
Much of the pair's work appears in the latest issue of Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications. Meanwhile, Fry continues his work Down Under, and Rooney remains his consultant in Peoria.
"It's interesting stuff," Rooney says.
PHIL LUCIANO .
Dr.Fry I found this article in our local paper.It's a small world.I live about 2 miles down the road from the lab.I had no idea anyone in the area was doing anything like this.And to think we arent even allowed venomous in this state.I hope to meet Mr.Rooney someday and talk herp with him....Paul Yancick.
lineage...LOL
