Charlotte Dawson

Post-Doctoral Research Associate

Charlotte studied at the University of Liverpool between 2013-2016, graduating with a BSc in Biochemistry. Over the summer of 2015 she was awarded a 10-week BBSRC research experience placement, working on photothermal microscopy of gold nanoparticles at the Centre for Cell Imaging at the University of Liverpool. In 2016 she joined the LSTM-Lancaster MRC Doctoral Training Partnership, spending the first year studying for a Clinical Science MRes at the University of Liverpool.

Upon completion of her MRes in 2017, she joined the CSRI as a full-time PhD student, focusing on developing novel therapeutics for the treatment of snakebite necrosis in sub-Saharan Africa through the application of virus-like particles. In 2021 she was awarded her PhD and moved on to a 6 month position working on high-through put screening of novel venom inhibitors.

Charlotte is now employed as a post-doctoral research associate within the Centre for Snakebite Research and Interventions, where her primary research centres on the evaluation of the new FavAfrique antivenom currently under development by MicroPharm, UK. In addition to this, she is also involved in research looking in the efficacy of small molecule therapeutics for use in North American pit viper envenomations, and establishing the extent of intraspecific venom variation in the medically important African species Bitis arietans.

In 2020, Charlotte co-founded International Toxin Talks (twitter @ToxinTalks) along with other members of CSRI to provide a free, easily accessible platform for early career researchers in toxinology around the globe.

Selected publications

  • A therapeutic combination of two small molecule toxin inhibitors provides broad preclinical efficacy against viper snakebite Albulescu, Laura-Oana, Xie, C, Ainsworth, Stuart, Alsolaiss, Jaffar, Crittenden, Edouard, Dawson, Charlotte, Softley, R, Bartlett, Keirah, Harrison, Robert, Kool, J and Casewell, Nicholas (2020) 'A therapeutic combination of two small molecule toxin inhibitors provides broad preclinical efficacy against viper snakebite'. Nature communications, Vol 11, Issue 6094.