DNA may take guess work out of diagnosing snake bites
By kingsnake.com · November 10, 2014 5:41 am
DNA testing may hold the key to identifying the right antidote to use for snake bite victims.
From New Scientist:
Chappuis and his colleagues collected samples from the fang wounds of 749 people at three health centres in Nepal, amplified the DNA and sequenced it. They then looked for matches in a publicly available reference bank of DNA sequences. They managed to identify the snake species responsible for 194 bites, 87 of which were from species whose venom is harmful to people – most commonly the spectacled cobra and the common krait.Read more...
