Launching Venom CoLab!

We are so excited to announce that Killer Snails will be launching Venom CoLab on Saturday, April 5th at the American Museum of Natural History! Please come by between 11-4 to try out Venom CoLab in the beautiful Gilder Center!

After 2+ years of research and development and a national Randomized Control Trial (data analysis coming soon!), more than 4000 students have used Venom CoLab in the classroom. This collaborative experience puts students into the role of biochemists, molecular biologists, pharmacologists, or zoologists studying venomous organisms!

VenomCoLab is an inquiry-based, collaborative science experience for 6th-9th grade students aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Over 5 class periods, students take on roles as scientists and work together to study venom. Each group of students studies a venomous organism to find peptides or proteins from venom as potential treatment for health issues: marine snails/pain, snakes/clotting, sea anemones/autoimmune disease, or scorpions/cancer. 

Students serve in one of four scientist roles: Zoologist, Biochemist, Molecular Biologist, and Pharmacologist. Each role performs distinct tasks using personalized websites and augmented reality or webVR on a computer or tablet before bringing their findings to a collaborative lab meeting where students work together toward their goal of developing a new medicine.

The Zoologist focuses on the anatomy, predators and prey, and key effects of venom for 2 different species of organism

The Biochemist focuses on techniques to separate molecules in venom

The Molecular Biologist focuses on binding molecules to cell receptors

The Pharmacologist investigates the molecular mechanisms behind each health issue

We are so grateful for the funding from the National Institutes of Health Small Business Innovation Research program. Venom CoLab was supported by the National Institute of General Medical Science of the National Institutes of Health under award number R44GM146490.