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Media Release

September 12 2003

Name your poison – find your cure

World toxinology experts meet in Adelaide

Was it the horned viper that Cleopatra clutched to her breast knowing its bite would be lethal? Has Indian traditional medicine found ways to use otherwise poisonous plants help to fight disease and infections? Does the venom from the funnel web spider hold the secret to new insecticides to protect agricultural crops?

More than 200 of the world’s leading researchers into everything from spiders, scorpions and snakes to poison plants and microbes and the impacts of their poisons will be in Adelaide next week at the 14th World Congress on Animal, Plant and Microbial Toxins.

The conference will run from September 14 to 19 at the Adelaide Convention Centre with key themes including toxins and immunology, toxins as tools, antivenoms and antidotes, toxin producing animals and bioterrorism and toxins.

According to conference convenor, UniSA Adjunct Professor of Pharmacology Julian White, toxinology is a little known area of research.

“Toxinology is the study of the natural poisons found in plants and animals and how those toxins work on the human body or indeed in other species,” Prof White says. The research that flows from this study, helps to uncover the natural pathways of poisons or just how they work in physiological terms.

“Globally natural toxins kill more than 120,000 people a year and effect millions of others, but it is the same poisons that cost lives that are being used to illuminate how to saves lives. It is research into the cone shell, which shoots tiny poison darts into fish to stun them that is helping in the development of local anaesthetics.

“By understanding more about everything from snake and scorpion venom to the impacts of poisonous mushrooms, we are playing an important role in the development of new treatments for blood pressure and heart disease, cancer, epilepsy, blood clotting abnormalities and pain syndromes.”

In what some consider home to some of the most lethal creatures on earth, this is only the second time the congress has been held in Australia.

The congress will be followed by a clinical training course in toxinology hosted by the Women’s and Children’s Hospital. The only course of its kind in the world, there are more than 50 visitors registered to take part.

“Whether it be in treating victims of poison bites or stings, building the base understanding that will help researchers develop new treatments or improving the environment by developing specific pest controls that have reduced environmental impacts – the science of toxinology is both fascinating and invaluable.”

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