Dr RACHEL CLARE

Dr Rachel Clare completed a MBiolSci Biology degree at the University of Sheffield in 2007, focusing on insect immunity in the final Masters year. After graduation she carried out a 3-month field based project in Madagascar investigating the role water holes play in disease transmission during the dry season before obtaining a position as a protein scientist at Vertex Pharmaceuticals focusing on cancer research.

In 2010 she moved to the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) as a Research Assistant in the anti-Wolbachia consortium. The consortium identified novel drugs for filarial diseases (lymphatic filariasis and onchocerciasis) via targeting the endosymbiotic bacteria residing within the filarial worms causing these diseases. In 2013 she initiated a part-time self-funded PhD to develop high throughput drug screening for these diseases, which included a secondment to AstraZeneca's Global High Throughput Screening (HTS) Centre. Following her graduation in 2019, she obtained her first Post-Doctoral role in 2020 within the Centre for Snakebite Research and Intervention (CSRI) focusing on developing HTS drug discovery for snakebite, including her Directors Catalyst Award which scaled-up and validated inhouse assays. These assays were utilised to screen both rationally selected and large scale diversity libraries to identify novel compounds within inhibitory activity against toxins found within snake venom which cause the most severe pathology.

In 2024 Dr Clare was successfully awarded an NC3Rs Project Grant to validate the use of Galleria mellonella (greater wax moth) as an alternative model for preclinical testing of venom activity and therapeutic development. This award was transferred to Edge Hill University with her acceptance of a lecturship in the Biology Department.

Dr Clare's current research focuses on the development of therapeutics to neutralise venom including snake bite and stings from jelly fish or scorpions. This includes the development of Galleria mellonella (greater wax moth larvae) as a research model for in vivo profiling of venoms and their therapeutics.