Summary
Envenoming resulting from snake and scorpion accidents represents an important public health problem in many countries. Recent retrospectives estimate the scale of the global health occurs to 421,000 envenomings with 20,000 deaths due to snakebites and 1.5 million envenomings involving 2,600 deaths due to scorpion stings, each year. The Maghreb countries, the Central Africa, Middle East, Central and South America, many Asiatic countries and Australia are affected. However, epidemiologic data are often scarce due to under-declarations and limited studies.
Each scorpion and ophidian venom contains hundreds of molecules, each having a very specific biological activity, acting potently on a specific target. These cocktails were optimized by Nature to kill the prey, to protect from predators or to fight against a competitor. Each venom bioactive molecule has been optimized by millions of years of evolution to be a possible drug candidate, since these molecules are highly soluble, highly stable, very selective, very potent and poorly immunogenic. This workshop will focus on venoms and antivenoms discussing their use in the context of a translational venomics medicine and as a source of new drug candidates. The recent advances to develop new antivenoms and bioproducts from lab to market has become the main concern and privileged approach to succeed in venomics and antivenomics research activities.
The workshop primarily aims at offering training to post-graduate students, young scientists as well as professionals in the field of Translational Venomics with application towards (i) improvement of snake and scorpion envenomation treatments, and (ii) discovery and design of innovative venom-derived drug leads, in order to better impact therapeutic care of patients.
This workshop organized by the Institut Pasteur of Morocco, aims at bring together leading experts in venoms and envenomations, which represents a serious public health issue in Morocco and to strengthen links between international experts. Speakers from different countries, including Algeria, Tunisia, Switzerland, Spain, Mexico, France and Morocco have already confirmed their participation to this important meeting. Several conferences and communications are scheduled during the workshop, addressing various topics:
1) Biology and systematics
2) Epidemiological aspects and management of envenomation 3) Venoms, composition and mode of action
4) Classic and innovative immunotherapy
5) Venomics and antivenomics
6) Therapeutic potential of venom bioactive peptides.
Furthermore, practical training sessions will address issues related to:
1) Venom toxicity and antivenom neutralizing assays with standardized statistical analysis methods
2) Discovery of bioactive molecules in animal venoms to generate new drugs
This course will also provide an opportunity to strengthen collaboration between the members of the Institute Pasteur network and the various regional research institutions working in the field of Toxinology and Venomics Medicine.
Strengthening the regional dimension will also be strengthened by the participation of students from the region to theoretical and practical sessions, as well as by the transmission of video conferences of lectures at the Institut
Pasteur Morocco, Institut Pasteur Tunis and other institutes of neighboring countries, depending on IT infrastructure and Internet access.
We expect this workshop to provide a great opportunity to review the state of knowledge in the field of viper and scorpion venoms and envenomations.
Pratical informations
The course includes two parts: Theoretical and practical.
In the theoretical part, we give a general view regarding to six various topics of envenomation: 1) Biology and systematics, 2) Epidemiological aspects and management of envenomations, 3) Venoms, composition and mode of action, 4) Classic and innovative immunotherapy, 5) Venomics and antivenomics, and 6) Therapeutic potential of venom bioactive peptides. The practical course session will address issues related to 1) Venom toxicity and antivenom neutralizing assays using standardized statistical analysis methods, and 2) Discovery of bioactives molecules in animal venoms to generate new drugs.
Registration by Email:
Contact
Dr Naoual OUKKACHE
Email : oukkache.naoual@gmail.com
Phone: +212 661 32 22 24
Location: Institut Pasteur of Morocco, Casablanca
Dates: October 2nd to 6th 2017
Application deadline: September 15, 2017
Participation fee : 100 Euros (1000 Dirhams)
Language: English and French
Lecturers
Balkiss BOUHOUALA , Institut Pasteur of Tunis, Tunisia.
Dominique KOUA, National Polytechnical Institute of Yamoussoukro and University of Bern, Ivory Coast and Switzerland.
Fabien TAEIB, Institut Pasteur of Paris, France.
Fatima LARABA-DJEBARI, University of Science and Technology, Houari Boumédiène Algiers, Algeria.
Rym BEN KHALIFA, Institut Pasteur of Tunis, Tunisia.
Jorge Fernando PANIAGUA-SOLIS, International independent consultant, expert in biological products development, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Julia CHAMOT-ROOKE, Institut Pasteur of Paris, France.
Mohammed FEKHAOUI, Scientific Institute of Rabat, Morocco.
Juan J. CALVETE, Laboratorio de Venómica Estructural y Funcional, Instituto de Biomedicina de Valencia, Spain.
Walter GARCIA UBBELOHDE, Deputy Director Medical Research Laboratorios Silane, Mexico city, Mexico.
Naoual OUKKACHE, Institut Pasteur of Morocco, Casablanca, Morocco.
Oulaid TOULOUN, University of Science, Marrakech, Morocco.
Fatima CHGOURY, Institut Pasteur of Morocco, Casablanca, Morocco.
Rachid ELJAOUDI, Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy of Rabat, Morocco.
Rachida SOULAYMANI- BENCHEINCH, Centre Anti-Poison et de Pharmacovigilance du Maroc, Morocco.
Reto STÖCKLIN, Atheris SA, Geneva, Switzerland.
Roland STOCKMANN, Paris VI University, France
Vincent VAGNIERE, Independent consultant, expert in breeding and milking, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Documents available to download
A round table will be held on the last day :