A research psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School has taken up the cudgels in defense of an exquisitely beautiful species of marine life, the South Pacific cone snail.

But beyond aesthetics, a Harvard press release observed, "This particular group of organisms may contain more medicines for treating human diseases and sufferings than any other group of creatures in the world." And yet, it added that cone snails are multiply endangered, which is the point of a brief item in Science, dated Oct. 16, 2003. It's titled simply "The threat to cone snails." The two-column's senior author is Harvard's Eric Chivian. He also directs the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard.

The paper and accompanying press release suggest that what we are losing in nature as species become extinct and ecosystems disrupted has incredible value for human beings. In looking at the health impact of global environmental damage, it expresses the hope that "people will recognize the cost of their own behavior."

Cone snails are a group of predatory organisms numbering some 500 different species inhabiting coral reefs, mostly in the South Pacific. Cone snails capture their prey - worms, fish and other mollusks - by firing a harpoon at their target animals. The harpoon is coated with a mixture of poisonous chemicals. Each cone snail is thought to secrete as many as 50 to 100 different toxins, every one of which differs from the toxins made by other snails. So with these 500 species, they may total as many as 50,000 different toxic chemicals.

500 Times 100 = 50,000 Cone Snail Toxins

Scientists have studied only about 100 of these 50,000, so 0.2 percent of that 50,000 total means that there is a large number of potentially important medicines that have not yet been analyzed in the laboratory or tested in clinical trials. Some of those that have been are in fairly late human testing. They are showing the enormous variety of potential medicines that these snails may harbor. They include a painkiller - an analgesic - that is soon to be on the market in Europe. It's being applied for licensing.

It's a painkiller that's 1,000 times more potent than morphine, but does not seem to cause addiction or tolerance. Another compound derived from these cone snail toxins may now be in early clinical trials for epilepsy that cannot be treated by any other means. Then, other researchers are examining cone snail medicines for diagnosing and treating a kind of lung cancer, called small-cell pulmonary carcinoma.

Not all of these endangered species are undergoing clinical trials outside the U.S. Cognetix Inc., of Salt Lake City, is working on drugs using the conopeptide family, found in cone snail venom. Elan Corp plc, of Dublin, Ireland, is working with a painkiller called Prialt that it acquired when it bought Neurex, which developed the drug. Over 2,600 papers have been published concerning cone snail toxin in the past 20 years. They represent an enormous amount of biomedical research going on about these snails.

Chivian's paper and press release recited the wide range of man-made dangers that menaces these hard-shell animals. It urges "serious steps to reduce greenhouse gases and mitigate climate change, especially global warming." That's certainly the major aim. A quarter or so of the reefs around the world are either dead or severely damaged, mainly secondary to global warming. Therefore, the organisms that live in the reefs, including cone snails, are also endangered.

Cone Snails Face Human Need And Greed

Cone snails also are threatened by over collection. They are being harvested because their shells are exquisitely beautiful and sellable worldwide. Besides, biomedical researchers are collecting them now avidly. So there needs to be some regulation in controlling and monitoring this increasing loss. There are no records about the trade in cone snails. They should be tracked under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

Biomedical research facilities must move very quickly to identify their compounds in pursuit of developing medicines; also, to synthesize these chemicals artificially rather than relying exclusively on the cone snails, which are the original origin of the potential medicines.

Finally, there are other ways that coral reefs are endangered - not just by global warming. Specifically, by physical damage - from boats and anchors, from sewage and pollution. In parts of the South Pacific, coral reefs are destroyed by certain fishery practices, including fishing with dynamite. This is common in the Philippines, hub of the world's ornamental shell trade. Human activity threatens 97 percent of Philippine coral reefs, and cone snail extinctions are inevitable if impacts are not alleviated soon.

Cone snails also live in mangrove thickets in coastal areas. They are being replaced at quite a rapid rate, what with land development and culturing of seafood, such as shrimp harvesting. Mangroves are now shrimp farms in parts of Southeast Asia, for example. These abuses need to be strictly limited in their scope or else we could be well on our way to losing what may be the greatest medicinal resource of any single genus on the planet. Cone snails are just one example of animals or plants or organisms that may be threatened by human activity. The larger message is that we know very little about species on the planet, and what kinds of information they contain for our own welfare as people.

"So, we need to be very careful about preserving the clone snail habitat," the press release cautioned, "so that we don't lose a species that could improve our lives. This," it concluded, "would be a self-destructive act of unparalleled folly."