…Tim Friede’s Painful Quest to Build Immunity May Now Save Lives Worldwide
For most, a venomous snakebite would spell disaster. For Tim Friede, it became part of a radical scientific experiment — one in which he was both subject and scientist. Over the past two decades, Friede has deliberately subjected himself to over 200 venomous snakebites, including back-to-back bites from an Egyptian cobra and a monocled cobra that once left him in a coma for four days. His goal? To build a broad immunity to deadly snake venoms — and possibly pave the way for a universal antivenom.
Now, his painful and often controversial work is bearing fruit.
From Self-Experimentation to Scientific Breakthrough
Friede, a snake enthusiast from Wisconsin, began “self-immunizing” in the early 2000s. He carefully injected himself with microdoses of venom from some of the world’s deadliest snakes — black mambas, coral snakes, rattlesnakes, and more — slowly increasing the dose over time. The method echoes the fictional strategy used by Westley in The Princess Bride to build resistance to poison, and it worked: Friede survived bites that would have killed the average person.
But Friede’s journey wasn’t just personal. He wanted his blood — filled with unique, toxin-neutralizing antibodies — to be a scientific resource. For years, his offers to donate blood went ignored. That changed when Jacob Glanville, CEO of biotech company Centivax, reached out.
“I said, ‘This might be an awkward question, but I would really like to get some of your blood,’” Glanville recalls.
Friede’s response: “I’ve been waiting so long for this call.”
A New Era of Antivenom
Glanville and his team at Centivax, which is also developing a universal flu vaccine, used a small sample of Friede’s blood to develop a broad-spectrum antivenom. Their findings, published May 2 in Cell, show that just two antibodies from Friede’s blood — combined with varespladib, a toxin-blocking drug — fully protected mice from lethal venom doses from 13 different snake species and partially protected them from six more.
“This is perhaps the best combination published today,” says Andreas Laustsen-Kiel, a venom expert at the Technical University of Denmark.
The results are part of a growing international push to replace outdated, species-specific antivenoms with universal solutions. With over 600 venomous snake species worldwide and snakebites causing up to 140,000 deaths annually (per WHO data), the stakes are high.
Science, Pain, and Purpose
Despite severe consequences — including paralysis, coma, and multiple near-death experiences — Friede believes the risks were worth it.
“Was it a mistake? Yes. Was it stupid? Yes,” he admits. “But I’m in it for the science.”
While not formally trained in medicine or science, Friede’s contributions may become pivotal in protecting future snakebite victims, especially in rural and developing regions where access to antivenom is limited.
Friede’s methods are not recommended for anyone to replicate — even scientists involved in the study emphasize that his path is not a model for others. Still, the insights drawn from his biological responses have opened up new possibilities in venom research.
In the end, Tim Friede’s blood — once a curious footnote in extreme science — may now become the cornerstone of a global solution to one of medicine’s oldest challenges: surviving a deadly bite.
