Most people would do anything to avoid a venomous snake bite. Tim Friede spent years trying to survive as many as possible.
The former truck mechanic from Wisconsin isn’t a doctor or a researcher by training, but his obsession with snake venom has placed him at the centre of one of the most promising medical breakthroughs in recent years: the possibility of a universal antivenom. Not just a better version of what we already have, but something that could actually work across a wide range of deadly snake species, especially in places where people are still dying from bites that should be survivable.
The self-made experiment
Tim Friede didn’t start with a research grant or a lab. He started in his garage, with a fridge full of venom and a lot of curiosity. Back in the early 2000s, Friede became convinced that it might be possible for a human to develop an immune response to snake venom by building it up gradually, the same way allergy shots work. So, he began injecting himself with tiny, measured amounts of venom from snakes he owned. Over time, he pushed the doses higher, and eventually, he began letting the snakes bite him directly.
That’s not just a party trick. These weren’t garden-variety snakes—we’re talking about cobras, taipans, and black mambas. Some of the most dangerous species on Earth. In 2001, he almost died after a monocled cobra bit him. His lungs began to fill with fluid, and he lost consciousness. Still, he kept going.
This kind of experiment would be shut down immediately in a university setting because no ethics board would approve it. But Friede wasn’t doing it for attention. He genuinely believed that if he could survive, his blood might one day help create an antivenom that works more broadly and more safely than what we have now.
Why current antivenoms fall short
Most existing antivenoms are made by injecting venom into large animals like horses or sheep, letting them develop antibodies, and then extracting those antibodies for human use. The problem is, they’re highly specific—a bite from a viper needs a different antivenom than a cobra. On top of that, they can cause serious allergic reactions, and they need to be refrigerated, which is a big problem in rural parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
The World Health Organization estimates that up to 138,000 people die from snakebites each year, and another 400,000 are left with amputations, paralysis, or other lifelong effects. The numbers are especially stark in areas with poor healthcare infrastructure. Even when the right antivenom exists, it often arrives too late, or not at all. The WHO now classifies snakebite envenoming as a neglected tropical disease and has made developing better treatments a global priority.
That’s what makes the idea of a universal antivenom so powerful. If it works, it could simplify treatment and save lives, especially in areas where identifying the exact snake species isn’t possible.
A scientist takes notice
Friede’s efforts might have remained a niche curiosity—or a cautionary tale—if not for a scientist named Jacob Glanville. An immunologist best known for his work in developing broad-spectrum flu antibodies, Glanville came across Friede’s story and was intrigued. Here was a man who had essentially spent two decades turning himself into a walking immune experiment, creating antibodies to dozens of different venoms.
Glanville reached out, and the two began collaborating. Friede gave blood samples, which were then analysed to isolate the antibodies his body had built up from all those venom exposures. Glanville’s biotech company, Centivax, took things a step further. They combined Friede’s antibodies with a small-molecule drug called varespladib, a toxin inhibitor originally developed to treat sepsis, to create what they hope is the foundation of a universal antivenom.
Varespladib works by blocking an enzyme called PLA2, which is found in many snake venoms and contributes to the tissue damage and organ failure that makes these bites so deadly. When used alongside the antibodies from Friede’s blood, the results in lab mice were startling.
According to a peer-reviewed study published in Science Translational Medicine, the experimental cocktail offered full protection against venom from 13 of the 19 most medically important snakes listed by the WHO, including cobras, mambas, and kraits, and partial protection against the rest.
From garage science to global stage
This is where things start to get real. If the therapy passes safety trials, it could be produced at scale and stored more easily than traditional antivenoms. That could be a game-changer in regions where rural clinics don’t have the facilities to store horse serum or the means to figure out which snake bit the patient.
Tim Friede, now officially Centivax’s Director of Herpetology, stopped self-immunising back in 2018. The physical toll was getting too much, and now that his blood had done its job, there was no reason to keep putting himself at risk. He’s clear that he doesn’t want anyone trying to replicate what he did. “Don’t do what I did,” he’s said in interviews. “There’s no reason to go through what I went through now.”
The collaboration between Friede and Glanville is still ongoing, and while human trials are on the horizon, they’re not there yet. Still, the project has already done something remarkable: it’s shown that a broader, more effective antivenom might actually be within reach, and that sometimes, the most important breakthroughs start far outside the lab.
What comes next?
Making it through animal testing is only the beginning. For a treatment like this to be approved for human use, it needs to go through multiple rounds of clinical trials to prove it’s safe and effective in people. There are also questions about cost, production, and how it would be distributed—all things that can stall promising medical solutions, especially in lower-income countries where the need is greatest.
But the momentum is there. Global health organisations have taken a renewed interest in snakebite prevention and treatment, and this kind of breakthrough could attract the kind of funding and support that gets it across the finish line.
Meanwhile, Tim Friede lives with the permanent reminders of his experiment: damaged tissue, nerve pain, and scars from more than 200 snake bites. But if the treatment works, those years of pain may not have been in vain. In fact, they might change the way we treat one of the most overlooked health crises on the planet.