Fortunately, The University of Arizona's college of medicine is home to the VIPER Institute, which stands for, Venom Immunochemistry, Pharmacology and Emergency Response.
VIPER researchers study, “venom injuries” through the genealogy, or family tree, of venomous creatures to develop treatments such as antivenoms, said Dr. Leslie Boyer, founding director of the VIPER Institute.
Currently the group is working with a firm in Mexico, Instituto Bioclon, to develop an antivenom for scorpion stings known in the United States as Anascorp and in Mexico as Alacramyn.
“The work that I’m doing probably could not be done by either country alone. What the United States has to offer with our difficult [Food and Drug Administration] is the standard of proof, to say a drug is effective is very high,” Boyer said.
Dr. Leslie Boyer holding a snake. Photo courtesy of Margaret Hartshorn, senior photographer for Biomedical Communications at The University of Arizona, college of medicine. VIPER consists of more than 125 national and international scientists and clinicians from all different fields and includes the doctors who participate in the clinical studies that test the potential antivenoms.
The FDA has never approved an antivenom for scorpion stings even though there are roughly 250 scorpion sting cases in Arizona and 250,000 cases in Mexico each year, Boyer said.
VIPER also collaborates with Dr. Alejandro Alagon from Mexico’s Instituto de Biotecnología, or Biotechnology Institute, in Cuernavaca, Morelos Mexico and is a part of the La Universidad Nacional Autónoma De México.
Through this collaboration, biochemistry students from the Biotechnology Institute and pharmacy and medicine students from the UA exchange research and learn from one another’s resources.
“By doing all of that together, we’re offering training opportunities for students that you couldn’t get in either country and we are developing drugs in a better way than you could in either country,” Boyer said.
This collaboration is partially funded through CONACYT, which is akin to the U.S. National Science Foundation, Boyer said.
CONACYT funds research and education at Mexican universities and has several collaborative programs at the UA, including the VIPER Institute. CONACYT indirectly funds the VIPER institute by financing the UA researchers’ travel expenses to Mexico to conduct this research.
VIPER is also developing a rattlesnake antivenom and researching the most cost-effective and overall efficient manner to deliver antivenoms to hospitals and patients.
The group began as an informal partner to the Arizona Poison Center in 2004 and in 2007 was granted institute status by the Arizona Board of Regents. It is funded through state and federal grants, including grants from the FDA and the companies that produce the antivenoms.
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