The findings of an international research team led by University of Utah scientists just published in the peer reviewed journal Nature Communications suggest a component of the venom that the snails use to help hunt their prey mimics a human hormone called somatostatin, which regulates blood sugar levels and various hormones in the body.

According to Helena Safavi, associate professor of biochemistry in the University of Utah’s Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine and the senior author on the study, venomous animals have, through evolution, fine-tuned venom components to hit a particular target in their prey and disrupt it.

“If you take one individual component out of the venom mixture and look at how it disrupts normal physiology, that pathway is often really relevant in disease,” she said in a press release. For medicinal chemists, “it’s a bit of a shortcut.”

Read more about the research findings.

Rep. John Curtis describes difficult visit to the Middle East

Suzanne Bates writes: Utah Rep. John Curtis visited the Middle East this week as part of a congressional delegation, where he met with the leaders of Israel, Jordan and Egypt. He said his focus during the trip was on how to get the remaining hostages freed and on how to stop the fighting.

Curtis described his visit in his weekly email and video — a forum he uses to regularly discuss his “highs and lows” from the week. This week, he said, was particularly hard.

The high for the week was returning to a region he had first visited in 1979 as an 18-year-old BYU student on a study abroad program, he said.

“The low, it won’t surprise you, is the angst, the turmoil, the pain that’s happening here all around. We have seen some things that I can’t unsee,” he said. “I actually told a colleague I almost wish I had not come on this trip because of what I’ve seen. But it’s good too, because this perspective has been very helpful.”

Read more about Rep. Curtis' visit.

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