Tim Friede has been bitten by snakes hundreds of times. Currently, scientists are studying his blood in the hopes of creating a better treatment for snake bites.
Friede has long been fascinated by reptiles and other toxic creatures. He once milked scorpion and spider venom as a hobby, and kept dozens of snakes in his Wisconsin home.
Wanting to protect himself from snake bites and protect himself from what he calls “simple curiosity,” he began injecting small doses of snake venom, slowly increasing the amount he wanted to build tolerance. He then let the snake bit him.
“It was very scary at first,” Fried said. “But the more you do it, the better you make it, the more gentle you become with it.”
While no doctor or emergency medical technician or anyone would actually suggest this is a good idea remotely, experts say his methods are tracking how the body works. When the immune system is exposed to snake venom toxins, antibodies are produced that can neutralize the venom. If it is a small amount of poison, the body may respond before it is overwhelmed. And if it is poison, if the body has seen before, it can react more quickly and handle the greater exposure.
Friede has endured snakes and injections for nearly 20 years, but still has a refrigerator full of poison. In a video posted to his YouTube channel, he shows off his bulging fang marks on his arms from black mamba, taipan and watercobra bites.
This photo provided by Centivax shows him standing in a lab in San Francisco, California in 2023. It uses his blood to prepare anti-venom against various snake bites.
Centibacs via AP
“I basically wanted to wander over there and then come back, pushing the limits of death as much as possible,” he said.
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But Friede wanted to help too. He emailed every scientist he could find and asked him to study the tolerance he had built up.
And, according to the World Health Organization, about 110,000 people die from Snakebite every year. And making anti-venoms is expensive and difficult. It is often created by injecting large mammals, such as horses, with venom and collecting antibodies to produce. These antiforms are usually only effective against certain snake species and can cause bad reactions due to non-human origin.
When Peter Kwon of Columbia University heard about Friede, he said, “Oh, wow, this is very unusual. There was a very special individual with the amazing antibodies he created over 18 years.”
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In a study published in Journal Cell on Friday, Kwong and Collaborators shared what Friede's unique blood can do.
It's a very early study – antivenoms are only tested in mice, and researchers are still years away from human testing. And while their experimental treatments are promising for groups of snakes, including manbus and cobras, it is not effective for vipers containing snakes, such as the Rutler.
“Despite the promise, there's a lot to do,” said Nicholas Casewell, a snakebite researcher at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, in an email. Casewell was not involved in the new study.
Friede's journey is not without its missteps. In it he said that after one bad snake bitten, he had to cut out a portion of his finger. And some particularly nasty cobra bites sent him to the hospital.
Friede is currently employed by Centivax, a company that is trying to develop treatments, helping to pay for research. He is excited that his 18-year-old Odyssey will one day save lives from Snakebite, but his message to those inspired to follow in his footsteps is simple: “Don't do that,” he said.
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