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Return to academia
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by AquaHerp on December 1, 2008
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I will soon be packing up my office and taking the Executive Director sign down from the door. I am shifting gears just a little and returning to the realm of academia. I have accepted the position of Curator of Herpetology for the Natural Toxins Research Center (NTRC) at Texas A&M University in Kingsville.
The NTRC is the nation’s only federally funded venom research facility and holds one of the largest collections of venomous snakes in the country. We are just beginning to understand snake venoms and their pharmacological potential. Natural toxins have already proven valuable in the treatment of stroke, diabetes, pain management, tumor eradication and more. The NTRC is on the cutting edge of snake venom research and the possibilities are endless. With roughly 500 venomous snakes to oversee, venom extraction, research, writing and collecting across the globe, this is a position that should keep me quite busy as well as feeling as if I am making an important difference at the end of the day. It’s not often that someone has the perfect job offered to them, I feel extremely blessed and overwhelmed with excitement to get started.
I will still be very much involved with the zoo world. I will never give that aspect up. I will still be participating in AZA conferences both nationally as well as the TAGs. To a large degree this position will allow me to get out in the field more often with some of you. Being up to my elbows in venomous snakes is my idea of a perfect day at the office. Anyone who knows me well knows that I would rather be staring down a 12 foot king cobra than a 12 page document any day!!!!!
Here is a link to the center: http://ntrc.tamuk.edu/index2.htm
Take care and I will be in touch!
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RE: Return to academia
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by Cro on December 1, 2008
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Doug, Congratulations on becoming the new Curator of Herpetology for the Natural Toxins Research Center!
It sounds like a fantastic job, and the website is really impressive.
Keep us informed of how things go there.
Best Regards
John Z
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RE: Return to academia
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by Phobos on December 3, 2008
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Congrats Doug!
I hate pushing paper around and would rather hang with the herps too.
All the best,
Al
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RE: Return to academia
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by Buzztail1 on December 3, 2008
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Congratulations, Doug!
I am sure you will do well with this position.
It is always great to get someone to pay you to do what you love.
R/
Karl
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RE: Return to academia
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by AquaHerp on December 4, 2008
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Thank you all. I will send out new contact information to many of you once I get settled in.
Karl, I look forward to having dinner with you and your wife again one day soon.
Take care.
DH
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RE: Return to academia
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by FSB on December 9, 2008
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When I was a little kid (sometime in the late Permian), I first read "Cobras in his Garden," the biography of Bill Haast (I had an autographed copy that mysteriously vanished many years later.... if anyone comes across one at a show inscribed by Bill to "Fred Boyce," please notify!). After reading of his efforts to use cobra venom to help cure polio, I used to proclaim to my parents that if there were a cure for cancer, it would surely be found in snake venom, to which they responded indulgently, "Yes, dear."
Having recently read articles about the success of contortrostatin, a protein derived from the venom of the southern copperhead, in the treatment of breast cancer, as well as the many other new therapeutic agents being developed from venom, I feel no small amount of vindication, and a vigorously-renewed enthusiasm for this field. Nature seems to love irony, and so I have always had an intuitive feel that things of great medical benefit could be learned from the study of venom, which was practically dismissed by the medical research establishment as a field not worthy of any consideration back in those days (as the pioneer Bill Haast so painfully learned).
Soon, people will be far more likely to end up owing their lives to a venomous snake than losing their lives to one.
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RE: Return to academia
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by AquaHerp on December 9, 2008
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Indeed. Wouldn't that be a wonderful concept to instill in every layperson "snakes save far more lives in a year than they take in 50"? We'll get there one day <insert semi-sceptical smirk here>
Take Care
DH
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