"Carbon monoxide is a quiet assassin. Odorless and colorless, it has a uniquely efficient ability to starve the body of oxygen: It acts quickly, building up in the bloodstream and attaching to hemoglobin in oxygen's place. When oxygen can't attach, red blood cells don't transport it around the body, effectively suffocating the organs. This gas, a common by-product of incomplete fuel combustion, causes 50,000 to 100,000 emergency room visits and 1,500 deaths in the U.S. each year."
"Typical treatment uses an oxygen mask or hyperbaric chamber to overwhelm the body with oxygen, pushing the carbon monoxide molecules off the hemoglobin cells so that oxygen can attach instead. It's effective, but it's slowand while only a small percentage of people with carbon monoxide poisoning die, survivors are often left with brain damage, cardiac complications or kidney and liver problems from oxygen deprivation."
Carbon monoxide is odorless and colorless and binds to hemoglobin, displacing oxygen and preventing red blood cells from transporting oxygen to organs. CO poisoning causes about 50,000–100,000 emergency visits and 1,500 deaths annually in the U.S. Standard treatment uses high-concentration oxygen or hyperbaric oxygen to displace CO from hemoglobin, but these methods are slow and survivors can suffer brain, cardiac, kidney, and liver damage from oxygen deprivation. An engineered protein therapy, RcoM-HBD-CCC, administered intravenously in mice rapidly binds CO and promotes renal excretion within minutes. The molecule has high affinity for CO and could potentially be injected in prehospital settings to speed treatment.
Read at www.scientificamerican.com
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