Venom Week to boast scientific, community events

Aug. 6, 2007

TUCSON – The new VIPER Institute at The University of Arizona (UA) and the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum will host a unique international conference Sept. 3-7 to discuss terrestrial venomous creatures, their venom, and the medical effects of venom.

Dubbed Venom Week 2007, the conference, to be held at the Desert Museum and the Hilton El Conquistador Resort, is anticipated to draw nearly 150 professionals in the fields of emergency medicine, medical toxicology, veterinary medicine, nursing, pharmacy, herpetology, arachnology, antivenom manufacturing and captive collections management.

The VIPER Institute, established in September 2006, is a group of clinicians and scientists who use clues from the genealogy of venomous animals to guide scientific discovery toward practical applications. The VIPER in the name stands for Venom Immunochemistry, Pharmacology and Emergency Response.

Leslie Boyer, MD, institute director, states, “The Venom Week conference will bring together an amazing assortment of experts: biologists, zoo people, doctors, paramedics, pharmacists, nurses, manufacturers, the Food and Drug Administration. The science is exciting, the opportunity for collaboration is fantastic, and there’s just no better place than Tucson to make it all happen.”

The World Health Organization estimates that 5 million snakebites occur annually, 2.5 million of which involve venom injury and 125,000 of which result in death. During the conference, speakers will address the worldwide shortage of antivenom for bites and stings from reptiles and insects.

“Research with venom is consistently progressing and expanding,” explains Craig Ivanyi, general curator for living collections at the Desert Museum. “Staying educated with the current scientific developments actually could be a matter of life and death,” he concludes.

Venom Week 2007 is also sponsored by the Arizona Poison and Drug Information Center at the UA College of Pharmacy. In addition to participating in the scientific conference, the poison center and Desert Museum will take part in two community events in relation to Venom Week 2007. On Saturday, Aug. 25 at 11:30 a.m. at the Tucson Children’s Museum, 200 S. 6th Ave., educators from the poison center and museum will present desert critters and discuss living safely with our venomous neighbors. On Saturday, Sept. 8, they will give hourly presentations on the same topic, again with snakes, spiders and scorpions from the Desert Museum, during the Save A Life Saturday sponsored by the American Red Cross at the Doubletree Reid Park hotel on Alvernon Way.

The Desert Museum will also hold its Annual Birthday Celebration Sept. 3 and invites visitors to have a piece of birthday cake at 9:30 a.m. on the entrance patio. Sean Bush, MD, star of Animal Planet’s reality show “Venom ER,” will be on hand to sign autographs and talk about his experience with the show. Museum visitors can meet him Monday, Sept. 3 from 10 a.m.-12 p.m. at the Ocotillo Café.

Other sponsors of Venom Week 2007 are the University of Arizona College of Medicine, the UA College of Pharmacy, the Natural Toxins Research Center at Texas A&M University, the University of Nebraska Medical Center, and the University of New Mexico.

Tucson Mayor Robert Walkup declared Sept. 2-8 Venom Week in Tucson with a proclamation read at the City Council meeting of Aug 6.

For more information, call (520)626-3389.