Snail's pace plenty fast enough for insulin.

• Position: Drug Discoveries

The structure of an insulin molecule produced by predatory cone snails (to stun their prey) looks to be an improvement over current fast-acting therapeutic insulin, suggest findings from researchers at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City. The snail insulin could begin working in as few as five minutes, compared with 15 minutes for the fastest-acting insulin currently available.

Helena Safavi, professor of biology and coauthor of a paper published in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, says that studying complex venom cocktails can open doors to new drug discoveries. "You look at what venoms animals make to affect the physiology of their prey, and you use that as a starting point. You can get new ideas from venoms. To have something that has already been evolved--that's a huge advantage."

Human insulin is a hormone that is produced in the pancreas and secreted to aid in the body's uptake of glucose. The insulin molecule consists of an "A" region and a "B" region. Diabetes mellitus disorders arise from impairment of the body's normal production of insulin. The most-effective treatment is injection of synthetic insulin.

However, a part of the B region causes insulin molecules to stick together and form aggregations of six insulin molecules. It is how insulin is stored in the pancreas, but injected insulin must...