Snail Slime to Cure Pain

For the past couple of years, as a company we have been keeping up with the Rough Horn Snail. I’ve taken the time to do a little research and I have some basic information that will get everyone on the same page. The Rough Horn Snail, scientific named Pleurocera foreman, Kingdom: Animalia, Phylum: Mollusca, Class: Gastropoda, Order: Neotaenioglossa, Family: Pleuroceridae, Genus: Pleurocera. These mollusks are invertabaes that simply put, are freshwater snails. The Horn snail originates from Alabama and Georgia and is proposed to be an endangered species. These tiny animals live in lakes, streams and ponds and get their food from scraping algae and other debris from rocks, and submerged plants. Humans have put these little creatures’ lives at risk, by creating dam construction, channel modifications, pollution from agriculture and the draining of lakes and ponds.

The Rough Horn snail has some very unique adaptions to add to its name. Such adaptations are: Their long antennae to enhance their sense of smell and touch. This helps with finding food and also figuring out surroundings. They have a much lubricated slimy surface that enhances their mobility on the pond or lakes floor, this also helps in attaching itself to plants and rocks. Lastly, in an effort to protect it the snails can fully retract into it’s for added protection against predators.

The topic I would like to mostly focus on is the snail’s slimy toxins that it produces. It’s been explained that these slimy toxins can be a solution to treat severe never pain and also epilepsy. Just imagine all the people we could help with this scientific outbreak. Not only that, but we would finally be getting our name out and gaining some recognition that we deserve. In order to promote our drug we could use a celebrity who suffers from these severe nerve pains and have them advertise for us.

I figure we could about this by fishing out quite a few of these snails and then begin to breed them. We could try breeding them with a larger species of snail and then that way we could get more toxins from all of each of the snails we breed. We can then being to contains this sticky substance and make it into our drug.

I realize we will probably run into issues with animal right groups questioning what we are doing to these animals, and some may dub it wrong and animal abuse. I think that as long as we keep detailed information about our study and keep the public informed that we are only doing this to help people, then maybe we could get their support as well.

I think that going in on this research would be groundbreaking; we could help thousands of people while doing something we enjoy and getting our business name out to the public.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061113180457.htm

Adpot a Species - Rough Horn snail Pleurocera foremani

http://www.arkive.org/rough-hornsnail/pleurocera-foremani/image-G90473.html

For my Adopt a Species I chose the Rough Horn snail, scientific name Pleurocera foremani. The Hornsnail originates from Alabama and Georgia and is proposed to be an endangered species. The Rough Horn snail belongs to the aquatic snail family and is a species of gastropod in the Pleuroceridae family and also classified in the domain of Eukaryote.

Its shell is pyramidal in shape, and thick. The snail's shell is yellow and orange in color and has up to 9 whorls on the outside of the shell.  These invertebrate snails are freshwater animals that live in lakes and rivers in the Alabama area.

This type of snail species gets nutrients from debris found on the bottom and sides of the river or lake. Many snails graze on a variety of places near their habitat by scraping their food from places such as, rocks, woody debris, and submerged plants. The ingested algae and organic matter is mixed with a steady stream of mucus as it enters the mouth.

Unfortunately, for these tiny animals their habitats are beginning to decline. Due to dam construction, channel modifications, pollution from agriculture and the draining of lakes and ponds these poor creatures have been endangered for quite a few years. In order to save these types of animals conservativsts have began getting the word out about cleaning waterways and even adopting a stream or rivers. By doing this will not only help save the Rough Hornsnail, but also help in saving other aquatic life.

In addition to maintaining water quality for bottom dwelling animals by eating algae, they are also a good food source for larger animals, such as fish, ducks and turtles. According to Bioprospectors – people who hunt for new uses of organisms - drug called Prialt, which comes from snails. This drug is thought to be used for areas dealing with the Nervous System. Prialt is injected to the fluid surround the spinal cord in order to treat chronic pain. This is used for patients who are suffering from cancer, back problems and other injuries. These mollusks also produce a certain toxins that are supposed to help in the fighting of Epilepsy.

The reason I chose this animal was because most people don’t stop and think about such a tiny creature. All life needs help to survive and I also didn’t know much about this particular animal. I wanted to do something was completely new to me in order to learn more information. I also, in a way find them really cute!

 http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/420/420-530/420-530.html

http://ecos.fws.gov/speciesProfile/profile/speciesProfile.action?spcode=G06V

http://www.healthcanal.com/medical-breakthroughs/14611-New-Drugs-from-the-Venoms-Marine-Snails.html