Peripheral Med
Alaska salmon skins could soon be prime source for heparin
By
May 8, 2004, 11:57

Courtesy the EMS House of DeFrance http://www.defrance.org

Thanks to a Cordova fisherman, salmon skins could soon prove to be a prime source for a life-saving product called heparin. Heparin is a natural product, available by prescription, that is used to dissolve or prevent formation of blood clots after surgery and in other settings.

Using a hydrolysis process, scientists have extracted heparin in skins from cod, tuna, grouper and soon -- Alaska salmon. That exciting prospect is based on early work by Erwin Coyne, a research chemist at Loyola University Medical Center and the Hines Veterans Administration Hospital. Using a small sample from skin taken from a side of Copper River salmon his wife found at an Illinois supermarket, Coyne's analysis -- a process called NMR, or nuclear magnetic resonance -- revealed the presence of heparin.

Coyne and his associates recently obtained a $250,000 federal grant to explore the content and potency of heparin in tuna and salmon. "But I was never able to get a hold of salmon skins until I found Bill Webber (of Cordova) on the Internet. He'll send me about 30 pounds of salmon skins when the season starts and then we'll really begin our study," Coyne said.

Coyne said Alaska is "sitting on a gold mine for pharmaceuticals," and it would not be a tremendous investment for the seafood industry to take advantage of it. He estimated it would cost about $150,000 to set up a hydrolysate plant that would yield a crude form of heparin that could be sold to pharmaceutical companies. "You don't manufacture vials of heparin -- you sell the basic powder to pharmaceutical companies and let them do the formulating and marketing," Coyne said.

Coyne said pharmaceutical companies are excited about a seafood connection for heparin, because the source used now is usually pig intestines. "Many people in the world do not want or cannot consume a pork product. There are a lot of Muslims and very devout Jews out there," he said.

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