Dr. Tim Cernak

Because it was never designed for frogs.

Could we put something together that really had frogs in mind as the patient in the beginning and maybe come up with a better option for them that's less toxic and easier to apply?

And then in terms of how do you apply it, so the way that this happens typically in local environments, the frogs will be collected, put in a bath outside of the pond, and then re-released into the pond.

Or oftentimes, a zoo will have a conservation mission where they are involved

in captive breeding of some of the most endangered frogs on the planet.

And then they're engaged in reintroducing them to their native environments where they haven't been seen in a long time.

And then oftentimes they're trying to manage this fungal disease while they're doing that work.

Oh, Pebbles.

Yeah, Pebbles is like a mascot for our lab.

She's incredible.

So she's a Gila monster.

She's housed at the Creature Conservancy, which is a wildlife rescue center here in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

And, you know, the saliva of the Gila monster is where we got these modern weight loss drugs.

The GLP-1s.

Yeah, the GLP-1s, right?

So the first GLP, like, you know, now we're on like generation four of these medicines that's coming out.

But gen one was straight up Gila monster spit or a single peptide that comes from Gila monster spit.

So crazy, right?

That like, okay, like here's this creature.

And treat diabetes, right?