A USF team has developed a potential new treatment for atrial fibrillation. Because AFib leads to increased risk of blood clots, it is often treated with blood thinners. However, these drugs are not very effective and can cause other types of heart arrhythmia.
Seeking an alternative, the team targeted a peptide called tertiapin, isolated from European honeybee venom. However, tertiapin breaks down too quickly in the body to be effective. So they attached the peptide to the stem of an antibody, to allow the drug to remain in the bloodstream longer. “Now we have a formulation that does not need to be administered daily– it could be every week or every month,” says researcher Sami Noujaim.
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