A bioengineered protein may someday treat carbon monoxide poisoning

An antidote for carbon monoxide poisoning could come from bacteria.

Mice treated with a tweaked version of a bacterial protein rapidly cleared carbon monoxide from their blood, safely eliminating it through urine, researchers report in the Aug. 12 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“The most common poisoning in the world is carbon monoxide poisoning,” says biochemist Mark Gladwin of the University of Maryland in Baltimore. In the United States alone, more…