State govt-funded serpentarium to open to develop anti-venoms

Bengaluru: The IT BT department of the Government of Karnataka will be opening a Serpentarium (an enclosure in which snakes are kept) soon.

Serpentarium will be established at a cost of Rs 7 crores and will be used to work on venom and antivenom research, house startups that work in the same space, and also serve as an educational hub, Evolutionary Venomics Lab.

It will house about 500 numbers of snakes belonging to about 23 species and also other venomous animals like scorpions and spiders. As current anti-venoms are ineffective and require a big overhaul, researchers from IISc (Indian Institute of Science) of which Evolutionary Venomics Lab is a part, will develop advanced therapeutic strategies to treat snake bites.

Venoms will be extracted from snakes that are housed and used for research.

The lab, which collaborates with the Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology, currently works with major anti-venom manufactures to test the effectiveness of the anti-venom in India.