COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS, Utah — Hiking up a hillside in Cottonwood Heights Thursday, Eric Januszkiewicz started a hunt, expecting a good discover.
“It’s tricky, tricky finding them,” he explained, as he browsed and penetrated under rock crevices and into bushes, utilizing a metal pole with a hook on completion.
He said timing is whatever when it pertains to discovering rattlesnakes. So is the weather condition.
“That’s just lucky if you come across one,” he said.
Most individuals wouldn’t utilize the word “luck” when it pertains to seeing the particular rattlesnake types he was looking for.
“I’m here trying to catch Great Basin rattlesnakes. That’s a particular species that I’m studying,” Januszkiewicz explained.
That Ph.D. trainee from Colorado has actually been making his method from southern Utah approximately the Salt Lake Valley to try to find Great Basin rattlesnakes. Januszkiewicz, who eliminated from Greeley, Colorado, began his journey near St. George. After searching the southern part of the state, he made a drop in main Utah.
Eric Januszkiewicz look for Great Basin Rattlesnakes on a hillside in Cottonwood Heights (KSL TELEVISION)
Januszkiewicz got lucky and captured a young Great Basin rattlesnake near Kanosh. He brought her out of an unique snake-holding container.
Relatively little for a rattlesnake, she crawled as Januszkiewicz carefully lifted her with his connected metal pole to keep her from roaming too far.
“This one is really calm,” he said. “It knows we’re no threat to it.”
It assists that he likes to deal with the animals.
“I’ve always kind of been fascinated and I got the opportunity to work with them in my undergrad,” he explained. He studied a fungal illness in wood rattlesnakes. “And so that just kind of got me hooked.”
And now Eric is hooked on what snake venom might possibly be utilized for worldwides of science and medication — consisting of prospective usages in combating cancer. He’ll bring the snakes he gathers in Utah back to the Mackessy Venom Analysis Lab at the University of Northern Colorado, where they’ll milk the venom from the snake. They take good care of the snakes, he said, and the milking procedure is pain-free and simple.
The Great Basin Rattlesnake Eric Januszkiewicz captured in Kanosh (KSL TELEVISION)
Januszkiewicz will then evaluate and study the venom.
“So, looking at all the toxins that are within their venom, that make up their venom, and looking at geographic variation,” he explained. “A lot of species will show a pretty large degree of variation within their venom.”
He’ll see what makes the contaminants he studies in the venom of the Great Basin Rattlesnakes discovered in Utah distinct. Januszkiewicz explained that it can help in discovering efficient methods to treat snakebites.
As for the cancer-fighting element, he explained how they’re discovering contaminants that might possibly target particular cancers in the body.
“All these toxins, the way they work, they’ll target certain proteins in the body, various tissues. And so, you can actually utilize that for good,” he explained.
Januszkiewicz said a contaminant can target a specific protein type that is possibly overexpressed in cancer cells.
“So, a very specific part of the venom, you could conjugate potentially an anti-cancer drug to it and target certain cancer types,” he said. “So there’s a lot of utility pharmacologically with these venoms.”
There’s a lot more research study that still requires to be done, he said, and it’s still in its infancy.
But he explained how rattlesnakes in Utah are incredibly helpful to science and might be utilized in the medical field down the roadway.
“Venom is just very fascinating once you really get into it,” he said.
Januszkiewicz prepares to complete his weeklong Utah Great Basin Rattlesnake-gathering journey in Spanish Fork Canyon Friday, prior to heading back to Colorado.
Eric Januszkiewicz holds a Great Basin Rattlesnake he’ll utilize for venom research study (KSL TELEVISION)
