Epibatidine
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Epibatidine is a chemical that comes from a poisonous frog, Epipedobates tricolor, found in modern Ecuador. Native Americans dipped their arrowheads into Epibatidine, which is now being used by pharmaceutical companies to create a painkiller 200 times as powerful as morphine but without the addictive qualities.
Interestingly, the compound is not an opioid; instead, it is similar to nicotine and appears to act by binding and activating nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. While epibatidine may be too toxic to use in clinical practice, the compound represents a new lead in the drug design of new analgesics.
External links
- [Epibatidine] - A review by Matthew J. Dowd
- For a full list of external links to MSDSs, spectroscopic data, commercial chemicals suppliers etc. for this compound, see [Chemical sources].
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