Professor Nicholas Casewell

Director of the Centre for Snakebite Research & Interventions and Chair in Tropical Disease Biology

Areas of research interest

  • Investigating how snake venom variation impacts upon the efficacy of treatment
  • Characterising the functional activity of venoms and their constitutive toxins
  • Testing the immunological cross-reactivity, safety, stability and efficacy of snakebite antivenoms
  • Rational discovery and preclinical testing of new therapeutic modalities (e.g. monoclonal antibodies, nanobodies, heparinoids, binding proteins) for treating snakebite
  • Discovery and development of small molecule toxin inhibitors and inhibitor combinations as new snakebite therapies
  • Evaluation of the safety and efficacy of new snakebite therapeutics via clinical trials

Career history

Professor Casewell is a graduate of the University of Liverpool (BSc Tropical Disease Biology), during which time he also studied at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM). Prof. Casewell’s interest in snake venom research developed at this point, ultimately resulting in a PhD studentship at Bangor University where he studied the composition, evolution and immunology of saw-scaled viper venoms and their antivenoms. The result of Prof. Casewell’s PhD research saw him nominated as a finalist for the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution’s young researcher prize, the Walter M. Fitch Award, in 2011. Subsequently, Prof. Casewell became Antivenom Manager for the UK manufacturing company MicroPharm Limited, in a commercial and academic collaboration with the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. 

In 2012, Prof. Casewell was awarded an Independent Research Fellowship from the Natural Environment Research Council to investigate the evolution and composition of different fish venoms, returning to Bangor University to conduct the research, before moving to LSTM as a lecturer in 2014. In 2016, Prof. Casewell was awarded a Sir Henry Dale Research Fellowship by the Wellcome Trust and Royal Society to develop new treatments for tropical snakebite, and was promoted to Senior Lecturer. In 2018, Prof. Casewell became the director of Centre for Snakebite Research & Interventions, a LSTM centre of research excellence that applies bench to bedside approaches to mitigate the impact of tropical snakebite. In 2019, Prof. Casewell was appointed to a Chair in Tropical Disease Biology by LSTM, and in 2023/2024 acted as the interim Head of Department for the Tropical Disease Biology Department.

Prof. Casewell was the winner of the 2019 Toxins Young Investigator Award and a finalist in the life sciences category of the 2025 Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in the United Kingdom. He serves on the editorial board of several scientific journals (Toxins, Toxicon and PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases), is a committee member of the UK Health Security Agency Expert Group on Antivenoms, and previously served on the Executive Committee of the International Society of Toxinology in his role as Secretary for the European Section. Prof. Casewell has actively contributed to several advocacy activities relating to snakebite, including involvement in the establishment of International Snakebite Awareness Day, developing museum exhibits with Liverpool World Museum and the London Natural History Museum, and co-organising the international public meeting Snakebite: From Science to Society.

Research

Professor Casewell’s research has been funded from diverse sources, including the Wellcome Trust, Royal Society, Leverhulme Trust, DFID, FCDO, NIHR, EU, BBSRC, MRC, NERC, NC3R, ARC, and Open Philanthropy, among others, resulting in a total research grant income of >£30 million. He has published over 150 scientific papers in the toxinology field, most of which focus on snake venoms and snakebite therapeutics, and these include papers that featured on the covers of prestigious journals, such as Science, Nature, Science Translational Medicine and PNAS.

Professor Casewell’s research focus is to understand the mechanisms by which variation in venom (toxin) composition are generated, and how this variation can be circumvented during the development of new therapeutics for snakebite. Highlights have included the publication of the first snake genomes, the development and validation of venom gland organoids, assessments of antivenom efficacy informing policy decisions, and the development of new therapeutic modalities for inhibiting venom toxins, including monoclonal antibodies, nanobodies, small molecule drugs and drug combinations. These studies have led to inventorship on multiple patent applications, and the progression of a repurposed drug from preclinical development, through Phase I and into a Phase IIa clinical trial.

In the media

https://www.biographic.com/venomous-weaponry/

Recent publications: