The
last thing you want to do is expose a wound, even a small skin
abrasion, to an environment crawling with microbes. Then consider the
alligator, which leads a rather violent life and lives in swamps. But
alligators don't succumb to infection they way you'd think -they have a
natural immunity in their blood.
Chemists in
Louisiana found that blood from the American alligator can successfully
destroy 23 strains of bacteria, including strains known to be resistant
to antibiotics.
In addition, the blood was able to deplete and destroy a significant amount of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Study
co-author Lancia Darville at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge
believes that peptides—fragments of proteins—within alligator blood help
the animals stave off fatal infections.
Such peptides are also
found in the skin of frogs and toads, as well as in Komodo dragons and
crocodiles. The scientists think that these peptides could one day lead
to medicines that would provide humans with the same antibiotic
protection.
So far, one drawback has been identified:
the peptides themselves are dangerous to humans in high doses. Read
about the research into 'gator blood at
Nat Geo News.
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