Hello from Belgium

Hello everybody,

My name is Rob Bobbaers from Belgium.

My interest goes mainly to Elapids, scorpions and sharks (especially blue – and tiger sharks). In first place, as a hobby I keep lots of scorpions and some snakes. My biggest love in the wide diversity of snake species are Naja samarensis and Azemiops feae. Well I’m an atheist, but if there was a God named "samarensis" I would have been a religious person. The only words which I could say about samarensis could only be found in love-novels, I think.

Because of my strong affinity with , particularly, venomous producing animals, I started studying biology in 2004. At the moment I’m doing a Master of Science occupation in Cell- and Systemsbiology and I do research about the Hepatitis C Virus entry at the Johnson & Johnson company.
Later on I want to do research in the reduction of cancer growth or nervous disorders by making use of knowledge from the physiology of reptiles and/or invertebrates and/or sharks. In other words, I think these creatures hide lots of secrets which could be used in cancer oppression or better knowledge of nervous disorders in human beings. One of these studies could be by studying the venom produced by animals. The neurotoxic fragments in elapid’s venom for example could be an interesting domain to study for better understanding of human diseases, nervous disorders. There are some animals which never produce cancer cells or animals which produce a very large variety of natural antibiotics (crocodiles). I’m interested into the physiological mechanisms behind these things.

So shortly said, I’m not only interested into the natural beauty of reptiles, especially Naja samarensis of coarse, but mainly into the physiological secrets they’ll hide for us.

My other hobbies are running marathons and triathlons at amateur level.

Kind regards Rob

PS. I hope I can get the opportunity to hold a Naja samarensis this year. So people who wants to give me the chance to do that are free to contact me and I would really appreciate that.

Robtile@gmail.com
Rob.bobbaers@student.ua.ac.be

Thank you