They might be Australia’s most hated pest, routinely clubbed to death by the public, but cane toads could soon prove an unlikely source of income — as an export commodity to China.
Researchers at the University of Queensland have discovered that cane toad venom is effective in fighting cancer, with the potency rivaling that of toads found in Asia that are used in traditional Chinese medicine.
The discovery opens up the possibility of sending millions of toads to China, where they would be systematically squeezed for their juices, which would then be mixed with herbs and consumed as medicine.
Harendra Parekh, from the university’s school of pharmacy, said Chinese companies were “queuing up” to get their hands on Australia’s cane toads.
“We don’t have any of the environmental pollution, such as heavy metal poisoning, that you see in China,” he told Guardian Australia. “So the Chinese see cane toads as living in a clean environment that doesn’t impact upon their venom.”
“We could process the venom for medicine, ideally in a tablet, because it tastes absolutely awful if you drink it. Look at lamb, beef and chicken — these Australian products are seen as premium goods in China. Cane toads would be no different. They’d be premium cane toads,” Parekh said.
The university has been working on cane toad venom as a cancer treatment since 2010, when former doctoral student Jing Jing discovered that the poison killed cancerous prostate cells while sparing healthy cells.
It is hoped that, depending upon funding, a system could be devised within three years to turn the venom into a tablet form that could be sold to the multibillion-dollar traditional Chinese medicine market.
“Ultimately, labor costs are cheaper in China than here, so we may sell the technology for the tablet and then in order to meet the demand, collect the toads and ship them there,” Parekh said.
A further possibility could be to target other forms of cancer with the venom, potentially opening up an avenue to medicine that could be sold to other countries. Currently, toads are predominantly used in Chinese medicine.
Cane toads are considered one of Australia’s worst invasive species, having been introduced in Queensland in 1935 in a misguided attempt to control the cane beetle.
It is estimated there are now more than 200 million cane toads in Australia, expanding their range at about 50km per year. The toads have marched across Queensland and the Northern Territory — with disastrous effects for native animals such as quolls, goannas and snakes — and are now invading the Kimberley.
Parekh said venom was easily obtained from cane toads by simply squeezing them and collecting it from their glands.
“You can do it while they are alive and venom from one toad can go a long way,” he said. “It’s very potent, which is why it causes problems if your dog simply licks the skin of a cane toad.”
“The cane toad is a pest here to stay and we are fighting a losing battle against it, but we could turn them into a lucrative export market,” he said.
“There are many opportunities a cane toad can give us rather than just whacking them with bats. Why can’t we turn them into something positive?” he added.
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
‘DISAPPEARED COMPLETELY’: The melting of thousands of glaciers is a major threat to people in the landlocked region that already suffers from a water shortage Near a wooden hut high up in the Kyrgyz mountains, scientist Gulbara Omorova walked to a pile of gray rocks, reminiscing how the same spot was a glacier just a few years ago. At an altitude of 4,000m, the 35-year-old researcher is surrounded by the giant peaks of the towering Tian Shan range that also stretches into China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The area is home to thousands of glaciers that are melting at an alarming rate in Central Asia, already hard-hit by climate change. A glaciologist, Omarova is recording that process — worried about the future. She hiked six hours to get to
The number of people in Japan aged 100 or older has hit a record high of more than 95,000, almost 90 percent of whom are women, government data showed yesterday. The figures further highlight the slow-burning demographic crisis gripping the world’s fourth-biggest economy as its population ages and shrinks. As of Sept. 1, Japan had 95,119 centenarians, up 2,980 year-on-year, with 83,958 of them women and 11,161 men, the Japanese Ministry of Health said in a statement. On Sunday, separate government data showed that the number of over-65s has hit a record high of 36.25 million, accounting for 29.3 percent of