Abstract
Animal venoms are complex natural secretions that comprise a mixture of bioactive compounds often referred
to as toxins. Although the number of venomous animals is often underappreciated by the general public, venom
is in fact one of the most frequently evolved functional traits among animals, with over a hundred independently
evolved venomous lineages across the animal trees of life. Despite this diversity, the molecular structure and
targets of toxins, which include receptors and voltage- and ligand-gated ion channels, are relatively conserved
throughout the animal kingdom. These features make venoms extremely successful evolutionary innovations
and ideal candidates for discovery and development of therapeutics to treat a wide range of human pathologies.
Indeed, there are currently six commercially available venom-derived drug peptides, and venom research is
growing exponentially, as evidenced by the increase in venom publications, symposia, biomedical applications,
and biotech startup companies. Consequently, the World Economic Forum recently designated Venomics as
one of the four most promising frontiers of science, highlighting the socio-economic impacts of these activities.
Venoms also represent a significant burden on human health, with World Health Organization classifying
snakebite as a “Category A Neglected Tropical Disease” and launching a global strategy for prevention and
control of snakebite envenoming. Realizing the full potential of venom and addressing its societal burden
remains challenging due to a scarcity of opportunities to create a cohesive research community covering the
many diverse facets of venom research, which span health and socioeconomic concerns to essentially all areas
of basic and applied bioscience. Hence, no single conference links experts in the basic and applied sciences of
venomous animals to those investigating the clinical, physiological and pharmacological applications of venom.
The 2024 Gordon Research Conference and Seminar on Venom Evolution, Function and Biomedical
Applications (Venoms-GRC/GRS) aims to overcome these hurdles by coalescing an interdisciplinary group of
academic and industry professionals to address venom as both a global health problem and a route to innovation
in health solutions. Our goals are to evaluate needs and roadblocks pertaining to drug discovery and
development, foster cross-sector collaborations that better meet the challenges in development and
implementation of novel treatments of envenoming and identify future directions for venom research, enabling
the field to grow. The conference chairs are making significant efforts to invite a culturally, ethnically, and gender
diverse group of 150 established and younger faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students to the 2024
Venoms GRC/GRS. These scientists bring expertise from a broad diversity of fields, from clinical to ecological
to genomics/proteomics, and we made a special effort to invite early career speakers that are emerging leaders
in their specialties, Our program will foster a community of experts focused on complementary and integrative
topics in venoms, drug discovery and development – key issues that are particularly relevant to the NCCIH.
