This lecture will have a complimentary reception at SALT Waterfront Restaurant on the Rosenstiel Campus, beginning at 6:30 PM. The lecture will begin promptly at 7:00 PM in the Rosenstiel auditorium. Seating is first come, first served as space is limited.

This lecture is also being offered virtually via Zoom. Click here at 7PM on the day of the lecture to watch.

Associate Professor in Chemistry at Hunter College and CUNY-Graduate Center, with scientific appointments at The American Museum of Natural History and Weill Cornell Medicine

Mollusks to Medicine aka Venom to Drugs

Venoms—molecules that evolved as toxins—have the power to transform lives. Marine chemical biologist Dr. Mandë Holford studies snail venom and its ability to disable prey by interfering with cell signaling. These peptides can provide insights into cellular physiology, informing efforts to develop new medical therapeutics, new agricultural pesticides with gentler environmental impacts, and myriad other innovations yet to be discovered. This talk will demonstrate the scientific path from mollusks to medicine examining how venom evolved over time in the terebrid snails (Terebridae), and how we can use this evolutionary knowledge as a roadmap for discovering and characterizing new compounds with therapeutic potential for treating pain and cancer.

Dr. Holford’s research, from mollusks to medicine, combines -omic technologies with chemical biology to examine venoms and venomous animals as agents of change and innovation in evolution and in manipulating cellular physiology in pain and cancer. She is active in science education, advancing the public understanding of science, and science diplomacy. She co-founded Killer Snails, LLC, an award winning EdTech learning games company that uses extreme creatures, like venomous marine snails, as a conduit to advance scientific learning in K-12 classrooms. Her honors include being named: a 2020 Sustainability Pioneer by the World Economic Forum, Breakthrough Women in Science by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and NPR’s Science Friday, a Wings WorldQuest Women of Discovery Fellow, a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar, an NSF CAREER awardee, and Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences. Her Ph.D. is from The Rockefeller University.

Sea Secrets Lecture Series 2023 with Mandë Holford, Ph.D.

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