Bjørn-Yoshimoto Group – Conotoxins in Biomedicine

Cone snails are a group of predatory marine gastropods that hunt prey, including fish, using a complex venom mixture composed of hundreds of individual peptides. These peptide toxins, called conotoxins, have a wide range of biologic activity across a wide range of molecular targets, and have already proven invaluable research tools, drug leads, and even one FDA approved drug.

Despite this, it is well recognized that only a small fraction of these peptides has been identified and characterized. This is, in part, due to the difficulty in determining the molecular target of each peptide. One part of our research is aimed at accelerating this process to more rapidly be able to apply new conotoxins as tools to better understand human biology and pathobiology, or even to use them as leads for new therapies to treat disease.

 One such effort is aimed at a peptide inspired from a conotoxin that evolved from a snail hormone akin to the human somatostatin, that has shown great promise as a new non-opioid treatment for various peripheral pain conditions.