Mandë Holford, from Hunter College and the Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomic at the American Museum of Natural History, will deliver a seminar entitled, "From Beach to Bedside: Venomous Snails and Drug Discovery." Hosted by the NYU Chapter of the Alliance for Diversity in Science and Engineering (ADSE), a national organization dedicated to increasing the participation of underrepresented groups in STEM fields. This seminar was coordinated by chemistry doctoral student Alex Andia.
Abstract: The Holford group is using a beach to bedside approach where clues from the evolution of nature is used to help identify peptides that can potentially be used to treat human disorders related to pain and cancer. This talk will outline the inventive tools from chemistry and biology being applied to: (1) investigate the evolution of venom in predatory marine snails, (2) discover disulfide-rich peptides from a venom source, (3) develop high-throughput methods for characterizing structure-function peptide interactions, and (4) deliver novel peptides to their site of action for therapeutic application.