News

Venomtech is pleased to share with you our success in finding new venom peptides that kill bacteria in potentially novel ways. These are all found in our antibacterial T-VDA. This is currently a leading story on Sky News blueprint-to-tackle-scourge-of-drug-resistance showing a small snap shot of what we do and why it's important.

We are fighting hard to bring these important tools needed to the people that need them to help mitigate the perceived threat of the antibiotic apocalypse.

The tools you need to find novel mechanisms to fight antibiotic resistant bacteria are right here with a full hit to lead support service to get them to the patient ASAP.

Contact us for more information.

Scorpions are an ancient group of arthropods who have evolved venom to subdue other invertebrates and even as an aphrodisiac in courtship. This potent cocktail of proteins peptides and other bio-molecules represents a wealth of new chemcial matter for drug discovery. As a result two of the top ten articles published in Toxicon are devoted to scorpion venoms as novel tools for drug discovery. Top of the list from Lourival Possani's lab details molecular scaffolds for anti cancer and antimicrobial compounds Paper 1 here. The other review from Peter Strongs team at Sheffield Hallam University focuses in on the antimicrobial peptides (AMP's) from these arachnids. In a world where nearly all our current antibiotics are all from fungal origins it is about time we investigate completely novel structures and mechanisms for controlling microbes in order to battle resistance paper 2 here.

in addition to these papers there is growing news of the tumour paint from the death stalker scorpion that is making it into clinical trials and veterinary medicine to allow surgeons to see cancer cells and therefore avoid damaging too much health brain tissue.

With the domination of classical antibiotics coming to a dramatic end, it is time to find novel sources of antibiotics that circumvent the ability of the bacterial to evolve resistance.

New classes of antibiotics are being found in the venoms of several species. Screening these as you would for other compounds is already yielding promising results.

Find out more on our product page here.

Basic Phospholipase (PLA2) is a neurotoxic and haemotoxic enzyme common in Viper venoms, including rattlesnakes.

Basic PLA2s, particularly those from Crotalus durrisus (pictured - C.durrisus vergrandis) have a wide range of therapeutic potenials for disease areas such as immunolgy, inflammation, infection, cancer and pain.