Toxins: what's up, doc?

Natural substances have been of interest for several centuries and many toxins of animal, plant, bacterial or fungal origins have been identified and characterized. The evolution of technologies applied to biotoxinology has permitted considerable progress in the deciphering of their structure, of the molecular bases of their interaction with their specific receptors, and of their role in neutralizing living organisms. Artificial intelligence tolerates the accumulation of a considerable amount of exploitable data, a progress leading to wide genomic and proteomic analyses and the establishment of robust models, which in turn can be used to identify new molecules of therapeutic interest through their functional identification and evolution. Toxin detection methods for early and highly specific diagnosis in public health, along with the understanding of their interactions at the cellular or tissue level, have also been improved owing to the use of biosensors. In this Special Issue of the journal Toxins, entitled "Toxins: What's up, Doc?", research and review articles concerning the latest discoveries in the field of venoms and toxinology will be presented to cover broad areas ranging from the composition and evolution of venoms to the mechanism of action, structural conservation versus variability, and therapeutic applicability of toxins. This special issue is open, albeit not restricted, to those communications that were presented during the 28th Meeting of Toxinology (RT28) organized by the French Society of Toxinology (SFET) on the 28th and 29th of November 2022 at the Institut Pasteur of Paris.