SOFTvenom: an omics drug discovery approach from animal venoms

Abstract

Multiple studies have shown the potential of some animal venom compounds for the treatment of different diseases where medical needs are not properly addressed by the current available treatments. Animal venoms are small effective molecules with extraordinary target selectivity and low side effects with huge natural and chemical diversity. These properties make animal venoms especially suitable as sources for drug development. Due to technical and economical limitations in traditional peptide screening techniques little work has been done so far in venom-based research for drug therapy. With the advent of Next-Generation Sequencing platforms novel and more efficient strategies for drug discovery are now feasible to improve Human Health.