Toxinomics Foundation
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Bio Ménez
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Prof. André Ménez
Founder of the Toxinomics Foundation
From 1994 to 2006 André Ménez was the head of the Department of Protein Study and Engineering of the Life Science Division, at the Atomic Energy Commission in Saclay (France). He was nominated President of the French Museum of Natural History in summer 2006 and he was Professor at the Institute of Technical and Nuclear Sciences. He was the President of the Foundation from 2006 to 2008.
Prof. Ménez has mostly studied proteins at the molecular level, including several toxins. He has investigated the 3D structures of various proteins, studied how they act, how they interact with the immune system, how they fold and how they can serve as a source of inspiration for designing new drugs.
In the 70's he has labelled several proteins with tritium, including toxins that were instrumental for discovering the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor. Since then, his laboratory has identified the structure of various toxins, mapped several toxin functional sites, shown that these sites include at least two components, one generic and the other more specific, mapped T-cell and B-cell epitopes of toxins, elucidated mechanisms of neutralization of snake toxins, studied toxin folding processes and engineered novel functional sites on toxin scaffolds.
Professor André Ménez has received national and international awards, including the Redi Award from the International Society of Toxinology in 2000 and the French "Légion d'honneur" and "Ordre du mérite". He was recently elected as President of the International Society of Toxinology. He has organized a number of meetings, edited a book entitled “Perspective in Molecular Toxinology” (Wiley) and written a book entitled “The Subtle Beast. Snakes: from Myth to Medicine” (Taylor & Francis). He was the author or co-author of more than 260 international scientific papers.