Dr. Mandë Holford and the Holford Lab team use a “learn-from-nature” evolutionarily integrated strategy, Mollusks to Medicine, to discover novel peptides from venomous marine snails. Photo Courtesy: Holford Lab
WINGS Fellow Dr. Mandë Holford, recipient of our 2019 Humanity Award, harnesses venom from killer marine snails as a force for good –– and she hasn’t let the pandemic slow her down.
As an Associate Professor in Chemistry at Hunter College and CUNY-Graduate Center, with scientific appointments at the American Museum of Natural History and Weill Cornell Medicine, and as an entrepreneur and co-founder of the EdTech company Killer Snails, Dr. Holford kept busy before COVID-19 shuttered New York’s overflowing streets.
Dr. Holford describes venom as “a superhero and a supervillain.” People see the toxic substance as dangerous, but her lab uses it as a “transformative tool” in developing new therapeutic medicines to treat pain and cancer.
Since receiving her WINGS Women of Discovery Award last year, Dr. Holford has continued to look at cancer as a channelopathy, employing venom peptides that selectively target only the channels on the membranes of tumor cells and not normal cells.
Then came the pandemic. Along with all of the city’s labs not focused on conducting coronavirus research, Holford Lab, where she serves as principal investigator, shut down in March. With snail collection trips and expeditions delayed, Dr. Holford and her team went virtual, meeting weekly to log journal entries, write grant proposals and analyze data. The team then pivoted toward in-lab model systems for venom glands, spurring its newest endeavor: killer snail venom gland organoids.
Organoids are 3-D miniature representations of organs created from isolated stem cells. “The idea is that we’d be able to replicate what the animal does in the lab,” Dr. Holford explains. “We’d be able to harvest the venom produced in these organoids and then use genetic engineering to manipulate the kind of toxins that are being expressed.”
These organoids, which have been developed for snakes by Hans Clevers’ lab, but not yet for snails, will help Dr. Holford discover how the peptides in venom cocktails are delivered so efficiently –– and that could lead to more efficient medicine. Replicating the organoids, as opposed to more invasive tactics, will also conserve the animal and its marine ecosystem by requiring fewer snails to be collected.
Racehorses, not unicorns
As Dr. Holford explains the intricacies of organoids and describes her second favorite venomous creature (the platypus falls close behind the killer snail), her passion for science is evident. Her respect toward her fellow women in the field is just as palpable.
Dr. Holford prefers we think of women in science as racehorses and not unicorns. Although there are fewer female scientists at the higher levels when it comes to full professorship and tenure, she says they shouldn’t be labeled as unicorns. That implies reaching such success is mystical.
“But it’s not,” Dr. Holford says. “It’s dedication and hard work.”
Besides, no one wants to be the only one, she adds:
“We want stables filled with women scientists. We want lots of them running on the prairie and being free. I prefer the racehorse analogy because we want to compete, we want to win, and we want there to be a clear training path to how you become a successful woman in science.”
That’s why Dr. Holford is drawn to WINGS’ mission of recognizing and supporting the fieldwork of female scientists and explorers. She laments how talks surrounding discovery often veer toward men.
“Women take on those roles of being pioneers, too,” Dr. Holford says, “and that’s why I wholeheartedly support what WINGS is doing.”
Dr. Holford presented her research on “Exploring the Transformative Power of Venom” at the 2019 WINGS Fellows Forum.
Photos Courtesy: Allison Hanes
A new generation of scientists
When Dr. Holford’s not pushing the envelope with her snail venom innovations, she’s likely on a socially-distanced hike in the North Woods of Central Park with her 3-year-old daughter, Ocean. Ocean carries a little tote bag and picks up twigs and flowers that she finds along the way, which she later pastes into her natural log journal, Dr. Holford says. Ocean is curious like her mother.
This wonder toward nature is something Dr. Holford seeks to unlock in other children through her EdTech company, Killer Snails. As co-founder and chief scientist, Dr. Holford sees the company’s educational and entertaining games as a way to get science out of the classroom and into the homes of young learners around the globe.
“We want kids to understand that science, again, is not this mystical thing but something you do every day,” Dr. Holford says. “You opening your refrigerator is science. The fact that you can have milk is because we found a way to pasteurize it. All of these things are science-related.”
But it’s showing children the wonders of biodiversity that’s most important, whether it’s a tabletop, augmented reality or virtual reality game.
Dr. Holford explains that the future of our planet will soon be in the hands of today’s young learners, so ideally lots of them will become scientists or, at the very least, aware of our rapidly changing climate.
For Dr. Holford, it’s just as crucial that those upcoming scientists prove as diverse as our natural environment. “It’s very important, especially now as we’re going through what seems to be this confluence of crises with COVID and climate and the calls for racial justice, that you see the thing you want to become,” she says, “so you know that it exists, and it’s attainable.”
Dr. Holford explains how imperative it is that underrepresented groups in science – especially Black women – see themselves reflected in the STEM community. Her accomplishments were born from determination and hours of practice, not mystical or “special skills,” she says.
“It’s just the brain, which we’re all born with, so we can all achieve [in science] if we want to.”
Dr. Holford mentors her lab team, including postdoctoral researcher Dr. Prachi Anand (middle) and graduate student Juliette Gorson (behind). Photo Courtesy: Holford Lab
Dr. Holford on a field expedition in Inhaca, Mozambique. Photo Courtesy: Holford Lab
