About
VenoMATIcs’ project aims to strengthen collaborations between Institut Pasteur academic research partners based in 4 MATI regional countries (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Iran), 3 research teams from Institut Pasteur of Paris, in order to use research advances/studies on venoms / envenomations to develop new generation of antivenoms/medical procedures, to in fine scale up the best in class candidates from lab to market. The project’s research and innovation activities are based on a multidisciplinary approach, which aspires at strengthening translational research capacity in resource- limited countries.
Nowadays, venoms and toxins occupy a preferential world’s position in the checklist of source of new marketable drugs. The originality of VenoMATIcs is to focus on two promising goals aiming to improve envenomation treatments and to designing venom-derived drug leads displaying more efficient effect than the commercial analogues. The innovative bioproducts will be able to solve health problems related to neglected diseases, therefore developing an alternative Integrated Venom and Toxin Management (IVTM) approach based on better quality control system.
There are two aspects in our project.
– In one hand, the validation, through field tests and operational research projects, will pave the way for future commercial exploitation of venoms and antivenoms by drawing up the best strategy to obtain high added-value bioproducts.
– The second aspect of persistent excellence is building up the MATI partners’ skills and reinforcing the training of early-stage researchers through knowledge sharing and networking. Bringing MATI venom research teams to work conjointly will impact evaluation and product maturation/exploitation. A concrete approach supporting well balanced activities and complementary engagements through the different outreach activities will hopefully be approved.
The preliminary phase is dedicated to pre- clinical study of obtained Nanobody-based scorpion antivenom candidates and giving evidence of performance of the strategy of Next Generation of Anti-Venom (NGAV) for fighting viper envenomations throughout generating Nanobodies against Naja venom toxic molecules.
