A Safer Way to Milk a Scorpion

At $7,000 to $8,000 per gram, scorpion venom is one of the most expensive liquids in the world. Mkamel believes scorpion venom has the potential to “create a new generation of medicine,” estimating that there are about five million unstudied compounds in venoms that may be useful for drug development. Mkamel says the “cocktail of bioactive compounds” in venoms may be useful to fight cancer, malaria, depression or to develop new painkillers.