3. Frog skin antibiotics
Next on our list of animals that have improved human medicine are frogs. According to experts, every animal, from the tinyest hydra to man, makes antimicrobial peptides. Dr. Michael Zasloff, a professor of surgery, knows animals can protect themselves with antimicrobials due to a happy accident of his own.
While analyzing frog eggs during research in the 1980s, Zasloff discovered that the sutures of the female frog abdomens, as a result of ovary removal surgery, healed without getting infected, even in their non-sterile tanks.
Based on the antimicrobial proteins found in frog skin, Zasloff completed a large clinical trial on diabetic patients who had diabetic ulcers on their feet to see whether a topical antimicrobial cream would help treat those infections. The trial would turn out to be successful.
