ADDovenom: Novel Snakebite Therapy Platform of Unparalleled Efficacy, Safety and Affordabillity
About Addvenom
Snakebites can be life-threatening when venom toxins are injected and enter the bloodstream. In areas where immediate access to specialised medical care is limited, bites by venomous snakes cause many thousands of deaths each year.
The EU-funded ADDovenom Project will use an innovative platform enabling generation of new snakebite treatment, based on a new disruptive protein-based nanoscaffold called ADDomer© – a megadalton- sized, thermostable synthetic virus-like particle with 60 high-affinity binding sites to neutralise and eliminate venom toxins from the bloodstream.
ADDovenom combines pioneering proteomics, transcriptomics and bioinformatics focusing on snake toxins provoking the most challenging syndromes like haemorrhage and paralysis. The aim is to develop first-in-class neutralising superbinders for snakebite therapy of unprecedented efficacy against the most prevalent Sub-Saharan snakes.
ADDomer©: Synthetic multiepitope display scaffold for next generation vaccines.
Research
The project comprises several technological challenges (rational design of new antigens as consensus toxins/epitope strings, design of an ADDobody library) and high-risk research (in vitro selection of new binders from a novel protein scaffold).
Latest news
LSTM team publish article on eliciting an antibody response that recognises snake venom
Researchers at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, including several working on the ADDovenom project, have published the article Virus-like particles displaying conserved toxin epitopes...
This Podcast Will Kill You explores snake venom
This Podcast Will Kill You (TPWKY), a podcast about infectious diseases, has interviewed ADDovenom team member Nick Casewell for a special episode about snake venom evolution. The hour-long...
ADDovenom researchers feature in National Geographic
ADDovenom Project Co-ordinator Christiane Berger-Schaffitzel (University of Bristol) and ADDovenom researcher Nick Casewell (Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine) have been interviewed for an...
Snakebite antivenoms step into the future
ADDovenom researchers Nick Casewell and Robert Harrison, from Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, have been interviewed for an article published by the Drug Discovery Network. Written by...
Presenting ADDovenom (and seeing rattlesnakes) in California
Stefanie Menzies and Becky Edge, ADDovenom postdoctoral researchers from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, gave poster presentations at the 2022 Gordon Research Conference on Antibody...
Discussing venom with Radio 4’s Rutherford and Fry
Professor Nick Casewell, who leads the ADDovenom team at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM), has taken part in a venom-themed episode of The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry. The...
First ADDovenom annual meeting kicks off in Bristol
The ADDovenom partners gathered at the Harbour Hotel in Bristol on 27th and 28th September 2021 for their first ever face-to-face meeting since the pandemic. Attendees journeyed into Bristol from...
Robert Harrison co-authors Telegraph article on snakebites and Covid
Robert Harrison, Deputy Head of the Centre for Snakebite Research & Intervention at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, has co-authored a comment piece for the Daily Telegraph. 'How...
Abstract submission: Next-generation sequencing for venomics
ADDovenom researchers Fernanda Gobbi Amorim, Damien Redureau, Nicholas Casewell and Loïc Quinton have co-authored the following abstract, which has been submitted for Venoms and Toxins 2021: The 8th...
Experts
ADDovenom synergistically combines unique expertise across a range of techniques and scientific disciplines, towards the objective to develop easy to produce, first-in-class neutralizing superbinders for snakebite therapy.