The study of venoms and toxins is relevant to a number of scientific fields. Clinical toxinology studies the impact of bites and stings from venomous organisms on humans. With the World Health Organization’s recent reinstatement of snakebite envenoming to the list of Neglected Tropical Diseases, clinical toxinology promises to be a growing area of research. Pharmacology, on the other hand, takes an interest in toxins (the constituents of venom) because of the fascinating structure-function relationships that influence their interaction with their targets. This perspective, including its application in “biodiscovery” – the search in nature for novel molecules for use in drug design or as investigational ligands – is properly considered an evolutionary outgrowth of ethnopharmacology, the ancient human practice of seeking medicines in the natural world. Yet another way of considering venoms and toxins is through the lens of evolutionary biology. The dynamic evolution of venom systems and their role in predator-prey interactions makes them a unique model system for studies of both molecular and ecological evolutionary patterns.

Are these various viewpoints best considered separately, or do we stand to gain key insights by combining them? In my research I have straddled all three of these subject areas and also consider venoms interesting subject material for work in the philosophy of biology and biosemiotics (the study of “sign relations” in nature). My belief is that our understanding can be greatly enhanced by treating venoms and their associated anatomy as the complex adaptive systems that they are. Thus, in this talk I will be jumping from perspective to perspective in order to give a flavour of the view of toxinology from the “interdisciplinary nowhere” that I inhabit.