HIV & AIDS

Nanoparticles loaded with bee venom kill HIV

(Medical Xpress)—Nanoparticles carrying a toxin found in bee venom can destroy human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) while leaving surrounding cells unharmed, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. ...

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

Bacterial toxin may trigger multiple sclerosis onset and relapse

A specific toxin-producing gut bacteria may be responsible for both triggering the onset of multiple sclerosis (MS) and ongoing disease activity, according to a new study led by a team of researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine ...

Medical research

Can a dangerous microbe offer a new way to silence pain?

Anthrax has a scary reputation. Widely known to cause serious lung infections in humans and unsightly, albeit painless, skin lesions in livestock and people, the anthrax bacterium has even been used as a weapon of terror.

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Toxin

A toxin (Greek: τοξικόν, toxikon) is a poisonous substance produced by living cells or organisms. (Although technically man is a living organism, man-made substances created by artificial processes usually aren't considered toxins by this definition.)

For a toxic substance not produced by living organisms, "toxicant" is the more appropriate term, and "toxics" is an acceptable plural.

Toxins can be small molecules, peptides, or proteins that are capable of causing disease on contact with or absorption by body tissues interacting with biological macromolecules such as enzymes or cellular receptors. Toxins vary greatly in their severity, ranging from usually minor and acute (as in a bee sting) to almost immediately deadly (as in botulinum toxin).

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