Nature’s Toxic Defenses: Why Don’t Poison Frogs Poison Themselves?

Saturday, October 8th | 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM (PT)

Doors open at 10:45 AM

Valley Life Sciences Building, Room 2050 | UC Berkeley Campus

8 minute walk from Downtown Berkeley BART

While we might be most familiar with rattlesnakes, black widows, and poison frogs (oh my!), toxins are produced or acquired by organisms in nearly every major group of life. This means that animals must avoid toxins or adapt to them. In this talk, Dr. Rebecca (Becca) Tarvin of UC Berkeley’s Department of Integrative Biology and Museum of Vertebrate Zoology will discuss why and how animals evolve to be both toxic and toxin resistant, including her research on how some poison frogs avoid poisoning themselves. In addition, she will discuss how studying toxins in organisms under pressure to survive their natural enemies also sheds light in fields across human biology, including the genetics of diseases, drug resistance, drug development, coevolution, and protein evolution.

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A note about this in-person event:

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About our Speaker:

Dr. Rebecca (Becca) D. Tarvin

Assistant Professor, Department of Integrative Biology

Assistant Curator, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology

While we might be most familiar with rattlesnakes, black widows, and poison frogs (oh my!), toxins are produced or acquired by organisms in nearly every major group of life. This means that animals must avoid toxins or adapt to them. In this talk, Dr. Rebecca (Becca) Tarvin of UC Berkeley’s Department of Integrative Biology and Museum of Vertebrate Zoology will discuss why and how animals evolve to be both toxic and toxin resistant, including her research on how some poison frogs avoid poisoning themselves. She will also discuss how studying toxins in organisms under pressure to survive their natural enemies also sheds light in fields across human biology, including the genetics of diseases, drug resistance, drug development, coevolution, and protein evolution.

About the Science at Cal Lecture Series:

Originating in 2009, the Science at Cal Lecture Series features in-depth public science lectures from renowned UC Berkeley researchers. These talks are free, open to the public, and are geared towards lay audiences.

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