Mande Holford

Explorer, Idea generator, Scientist, Social entrepreneur, World traveler

Dr. Holford’s Laboratory of Chemical and Biological Diversity use venoms and venomous animals as agents of molecular change and medicinal innovations. She is interested in how venoms direct the evolution of organisms and how they can improve human lives. Specifically, her research demonstrates the scientific path from mollusks to medicine examining how venom evolved over time in marine snails (terebrids and cones), and coleoid cephalopods (squids, cuttlefish, and octopuses) to interrogate how to use their evolutionary knowledge as a roadmap for discovering and characterizing new peptides with therapeutic potential. Her work combines scientific research, education and diplomacy to understand the extraordinary marine biodiversity on our planet and transform this knowledge for the benefit of nature and humanity. She uses non-traditional model systems and an interdisciplinary learn-from-nature, Mollusks to Medicine, strategy to discover novel peptides from venomous marine snails that could be used to manipulate cellular physiology pertaining to pain and cancer. Her honors include the inaugural endowed Anne Welsh McNulty Chair in Science Innovation and Leadership, an NIH Pioneer Award, an Allen Institute Distinguished Investigator Award, an NSF CAREER award, a WINGS Women of Discovery Fellowship, a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, a AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellowship, being selected as a World Economic Forum Champion Young Scientist and Sustainability Pioneer, a fellow of the California Academy of Sciences, a AAAS Fellow, a member of the NASEM Roundtable on Science Diplomacy and Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She is cofounder of Killer Snails, LLC, an award winning EdTech company that uses tabletop, digital, and XR games as a conduit to advance scientific learning in K-12 classrooms. She is also cofounder of 2030STEM an initiative to accelerate inclusion in STEM by promoting leadership, access to capital, and systemic institutional change. She is an alum of the City University of New York, and her PhD is from the Rockefeller University. Dr. Holford’s research program is global, interdisciplinary and collaborative with impacts ranging from evolution and molecular systematics to nanotechnology and drug discovery.

Venoms, Science Education, and Science Diplomacy.

Venoms are change agents for scientific innovation. They transform physical warfare to a biochemical one. Venoms are super-villians and super-heros. When the components of a venom arsenal are injected into an organism it can kill or cure. At a molecular level several things can happen. Studying venoms is a scientific adventure. We don’t know what we’ll find. We’re boldly exploring this entity that connects nature and humanity.

Chemical Biology, drug discovery, Peptide chemistry, Science Diplomacy, Science Education, Venoms

is happening now!

Godfather movie trivia and lamenting the New York Knicks.