Tree frog's opiate better than morphine

A SOUTH American tree frog may hold the key to a new form of painkiller 200 times more powerful than morphine, but without the side effects, researchers at Leicester University have said. John Malpass, at the university's chemistry department, has pioneered ways of producing non-toxic variants of the substance epibatidine, an unusual opiate secreted from the Epipedobates tricolor frog.

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