EuroTechPostdoc2 fellows Melisa Benard Valle and Aldona Mzyk were selected amongst around 400 applications to present their research at the “Science is Wonderful” fair of the European Commission. On 25 and 26 April 2024, they introduced their visitors in Brussels to the secrets of snakes…
Every year, over 100,000 people die of snakebites, and around three times as many suffer from amputations and other permanent disabilities following the bite of a snake. Agricultural workers and children are the most affected. Better treatments for venomous bites are urgently needed. At the science fair, Melisa and Aldona helped eager explorers turn their mobile phones into a microscope to analyse snake samples, determine the snake that caused the bite and identify a suitable antivenom.
Both Aldona and Melisa work at the Technical University of Denmark and are co-hosted by EPFL and Eindhoven University of Technology respectively. For their joint booth, they combined their expertise in two very different fields to create an unforgettable experience for science fair visitors.
_The EuroTechPostdoc2 programme has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 899987._