Indigenous tribes of the western Amazon have considered kambo, or sapo, an “ancestral medicine” for over 2000 years. The secretion of the kambo frog (Phyllomedusa bicolour) is the medicine. At the beginning of the 20th century, the great drought in northeastern South America produced a migration of people to the western jungle to work in the rubber factories. This mass movement favoured the rediscovery of kambo and its use by non-indigenous populations outside of native tribes in the jungle. Its peculiar effects piqued curiosity and motivated scientific studies to research its composition as well as to determine its bioactive properties.

​While studies on indigenous tribes using Kambo began in the 1930s, it was anthropologist and journalist Peter Gorman who, in around 1980, documented his experiences with kambo in his article “Making Magic” and sent samples of the secretion of the Phyllomedusa Bicolour (kambo frog) to western universities to study the bioactive peptides.

​The first bioactive peptide produced by a Phyllomedusa was discovered in 1966 and, since then, the discoveries of these biopeptides have grown exponentially. Scientific research on kambo began in 1980 thanks to the Italian pharmacologist Vittorio Erspamer at the University of Rome. He was twice nominated for the Nobel Prize and is considered to be the first scientist to analyse kambo in the laboratory, concluding that kambo contains a “fantastic chemical cocktail with potential medical applications unmatched by any other amphibian.”

​Kambo is administered through small burns in the skin, immediately triggering a variety of beneficial chemical reactions in the body. Kambo has the ability, unlike many other natural and pharmaceutical substances, to cross the blood-brain barrier and produce its effects also at the level of the brain. Human cells open themselves to the beneficial properties of Kambo unlike many substances that are filtered and eliminated by the body’s highly intelligent defence system.

In this chemical cocktail, we find peptides that perform hormone-like tasks, while others provide support for vital cellular processes (learning, memory, metabolism of certain neurotransmitters). Others have a potent effect on the gastrointestinal muscles, gastric and pancreatic secretions, blood circulation and stimulation of the adrenal cortex and pituitary gland and reproductive system, others possess potent analgesic powers. Others are able to inhibit the growth of tumour cells, and antimicrobial, anti-fungal, antiviral and antiprotozoal peptides have also been identified.

The latter property opens a new door in the fight against bacterial infections that have developed resistance to antibiotics that already exist in the market, using these to apply  nanotechnologies to these modern biopeptides.