A full proposal will be submitted by John Perez, biology professor and director of the NTRC, for consideration at the January 2000 board meeting. Perez said the mission of the NTRC is to provide research, training and resources that lead to the discovery of medically important toxins and toxin products found in snake venoms. Through its captive snake breeding and maintenance program, the NTRC will enhance biomedical research by providing individually collected snake venoms, purified toxins from those venoms, and antibody products to researchers worldwide.
Snake venoms are a complex mixture of chemicals, some of which have important medical properties.
However, the medical potential from these natural toxins has been examined in fewer than 13 percent of the venomous snakes found in North America. Maximizing the biomedical potential of venoms require that they be made available to biomedical researchers. To date, no facility functions in this capacity. Through capture and captive breeding programs, the proposed center would acquire and chemically characterize a wide range of venoms, and provide them to biomedical researchers worldwide.