Animal Poisons and Venoms in Drug Discovery
A special issue of Toxins (ISSN 2072-6651). This special issue belongs to the section "Animal Venoms".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 December 2022) | Viewed by 27390
Special Issue Editors
Interests: Pharmacology; Toxicology; Ion channels; Electrophysiology; Kidney diseases, Hypertension, Cardiovascular function
2. Zoology Department, Faculty of Science, Minia University, El-Minia 61519, Egypt
Interests: animal venoms and toxins; drug discovery; ion channels and membrane receptors; electrophysiology; pharmacology; snakebite; antivenom production
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The development of new drugs represents one of the biggest challenging activities of the pharmaceutical industry. Since the middle of the 20th century, a growing number of potential therapeutic agents have been extracted and isolated from plants, animal venoms, and microorganism toxins. While the preliminary effort with regard to animal poisons and venoms was to understand the effects of snake and spider bites and scorpion stings on humans and to elaborate the action of the toxins, toxins from animal poisons and venoms display wide-ranging pharmacological activities, targeting mainly ion channels, membrane receptors, and components of the hemostatic system with high selectivity and affinity. Animal poisons and venoms are complex chemical mixtures of biologically active proteins. Animal venom components were also understood to be medical tools for thousands of years in Ayurveda, homeopathy, and traditional/folk medicine for the treatment of a variety of pathophysiological conditions.
In the past few decades, several potential drugs in use or in clinical trials have been isolated or derived from animal venoms. Since 1981, 10 toxin-based molecules have received FDA approval, five from snakes (Captopril, Tirofiban, Eptifibatide, Batroxobin, and Cobratide), two from lizards (Exenatide and Lixisenatide), two from leeches (Bivalirudin and Desirudin), and one from cone snails (Ziconotide). Many additional animal venom components are also currently in different clinical stages as therapeutic drugs.
This Special Issue of Toxins on “Animal Poisons and Venoms in Drug Discovery” aims to provide a comprehensive view not only of snake venom but also several other animal toxins having therapeutic potential for drug discovery. We welcome all research including original research articles, reviews, and short communications focused on the characterization, pharmacology, and therapeutic applications of animal poisons and venoms and their subcomponents. We hope that researchers will share their valuable studies using snake venoms for drug development.
Dr. Antonio Garcia Soares
Dr. Tarek Mohamed Abd El-Aziz
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- Animal poisons and venoms
- Bioactive proteins and peptides
- Drug discovery
- Pharmacology
- Therapeutic applications
- Ion channels
- Membrane proteins
- Antimicrobial agents
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