Prof P. Gopalakrishnakone is a world leader in the characterization of the structure and function of animal and plant toxins and chemical poisons, which contain highly specific and biologically active components. He has contributed significantly to the body of knowledge regarding the anatomy of snake venom glands and the development of drug candidates from animal toxins.

Prof Gopal pioneered the development of the NUS Venom and Toxin Research Programme, which has put NUS at the forefront of toxin research internationally. The technology platform that has been built over the years under the Venom and Toxin Research Programme, coupled with its extensive library of protein and peptides, has enabled Prof Gopal and his team to complete the discovery process of lead candidates in time and to transfer valuable supplementary information to the next discovery steps involving profiling and optimization of lead candidates. The objective is to characterize the venom components and natural toxins at a molecular level and identify promising compounds amenable to the development of novel human therapeutics. Prof Gopal’s lab has identified over twenty peptides with unique medical indications from venom-based proteins with some already under development as therapeutics.

Prof Gopal’s research studies includes structure function studies (toxin detection, biosensors, antitoxins and neutralization factors), toxicogenomics and expression studies,  antimicrobial peptides from venoms and toxins and PLA2 inhibitors as potential drug candidate for inflammatory diseases.  The techniques he employs include quantum dots to toxinology, computational biology, microarrays and protein chips. He has patented analgesic peptide, anti inflammatory peptide as well as anti rheumatoid arthritis peptides. He is exploring various possibilities of delivery systems for these peptides to target sites and administration of these peptides orally, transdermally, ocular and injections.

Prof Gopal has over 100 international peer-reviewed papers in venom and toxin research, drug discovery, biosensors, and toxinogenomics. His research awards include the Outstanding University Researcher Award from the National University of Singapore (1998); Ministerial Citation, NSTB Year 2000 Award in Singapore; and the Research Excellence Award from the Faculty of Medicine, National University of Singapore (2003). His awards in teaching include, Faculty Teaching Excellence Award 2003/4 & NUS Annual Teaching Excellence Award 2003/4. He also received the Faculty Teaching Excellence Award in 2009/10 and the Annual Teaching Excellence Award, NUS FOR 2009/10. He is the President of International Society on Toxinology till 2012, and is a member of the editorial board of Toxicon, the official journal of the International Society on Toxinology.

Prof. Elisabeth Ferroni Schwartz, born in Brazil, is a biologist and completed her Ph.D. degree in physiological sciences at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, in 1987. Since them, she has been working with animal toxins. After spending one year of a postdoctoral training at the lab of Prof. Lourival Domingos Possani at the Institute of Biotechnology of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, in 2004–2005, her research interest was pointed to arthropod venom toxins, mainly the scorpion peptides acting on ion channels. Over the last 10 years, her work—mainly focused on the identification and characterization of scorpion toxins—combined proteomic and transcriptomic approaches. She is professor at the University of Brasilia, Brazil, where she teaches physiology and pharmacology. Her investigative work resulted in about 40 scientific publications, independently cited 400 times. She advised more than 70 students at levels of college, master, and Ph.D. degrees.

Prof. Lourival Domingos Possani was born in Brazil, now Mexican by naturalization; completed his college degree in Porto Alegre, Brazil, on subjects related to natural sciences; and obtained his Ph.D. degree in molecular biophysics at the University of Paris in 1970. He spent a postdoctoral training at the Rockefeller University in New York and sabbatical years at the Max Planck Institute in Germany and at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. Since 1974, he is professor at the Institute of Biotechnology of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. The work performed is mainly related to scorpion venom components structure and function. His contributions to science are printed in 306 publications of international journals listed in the Science Citation Index. He has 40 patents of invention approved in several countries. In his laboratory, 84 students have finished their thesis at level of college, master, and Ph. D. degrees. His work is cited more than 7,000 times by other authors. He received many recognitions and distinctions for his work, among which is the Redi Award from the International Society on Toxinology; the Doctorate Honnoris Causa by the University of Debrecen, Hungary; the National Prize of Science in Arts from the Mexican Government; the National Autonomous University of Mexico prize on natural sciences; and innumerous recognition from pharmaceutical companies. He was an international scholar of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute for 10 years, and recently received the Carlos Slim prize 2014 for working on health problems of Latin American and Caribbean countries.

Dr. Ricardo C. Rodríguez de la Vega is a Mexican scientist holding a college degree in chemistry and a Ph.D. in biochemistry, both from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. After staying for 10 years at the lab of Prof. Lourival Domingos Possani, where he started working as undergraduate student, he received further postdoctoral training in Germany (European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg) and France. He has also been a visiting scientist at the National Natural History Museum in Paris (France). A chemist-turned-evolutionary biologist, he has a long-lasting research interest on whether and how the evolutionary history of biotic interactions has been recorded at the molecular level. Over the last 10 years, his work has been mainly focused on the study of animal venoms and venom components, with combined experimental and computational biology approaches. He has contributed with some landmark evidence and analysis into two main areas: 1) the molecular and evolutionary basis of target recognition by animal toxins, including the identification of previously neglected interaction modes of potassium channel blocking toxins, and 2) the convergent recruitment of protein folds into animal venoms, including one of the earliest identified venom recruitment events from immune response proteins and a paradigm-shifting analysis of venom evolution. A heavily cited author (over 1,000 independent citations to his nearly 30 papers), passionate for teaching and outreaching, Dr. Ricardo C. Rodríguez de la Vega is currently working in the genetics, ecology and evolution team at the Paris-Sud University in France.