Translation of the Dutch text by Marjolein de Jong | Photo: David Meulenbeld | 24 February 2026
Mátyás Bittenbinder is a VU scientist and television presenter. Recently, he took part in the television programme Expeditie Robinson, where he spent 33 days living on an island without any comforts. It felt, he says, “like coming home as a biologist”. In everyday life, he is usually found in a laboratory, where he researches snake venom and its possible medical uses.
At the age of five, Mátyás could already be found in his parents’ pond catching salamanders. He would sort them by colour and then release them again. “Before I knew what a biologist was, I already wanted to become one.”
What drew you to nature as a child?
I was always outdoors, busy with animals: dragonflies, larvae, sticklebacks and tadpoles. I also had a babysitter who knew a great deal about nature and taught me all sorts of things. On holiday, I would always walk around with those little field guides – bird books and reptile guides – so I could look for animals myself.
And why become a television biologist?
My great heroes were Steve Irwin and David Attenborough. What they did – travelling the world, standing right in the middle of nature, showing animals up close and speaking about them with such enthusiasm – I thought that was absolutely brilliant. But it was never my goal to be on television. It was more that I wanted to engage with nature and animals every day. The storytelling came later.
Why did you choose animal venom as your research field?
Venom is contradictory, and that fascinates me. Something that can paralyse or kill a body can at the same time form the basis for curing diseases. There are truly deadly venomous snakes, frogs and spiders. Yet within that venom there can also be components that can be used to develop medicines.
During my studies, I decided to do an internship with the professor under whom Freek Vonk had also completed his PhD. I thought: if I work there, I’ll be close to the source. Through that internship, I ended up in Australia researching snake venom. That’s when I realised: this is so fascinating, I want to devote my life to it.
Venom is also an interdisciplinary subject. I’m not only working in molecular biology, but also in the medical domain. If you study how a body can become paralysed within half an hour, for instance after a sting from a box jellyfish, you need to understand exactly what is happening inside that body.
How do medicines based on venom actually work?
Venom is essentially a cocktail of different components: toxins. We study what those toxins do in the body. What kind of damage do they cause? One of the most widely used blood pressure–lowering drugs is based on snake venom. A component that causes blood pressure to drop dangerously fast after a bite can, in a controlled dose, actually help people with high blood pressure.
At the moment, we are also looking at the potential use of venom in cancer treatment. For a tumour to grow, for example, it is important that new blood vessels form to supply it with oxygen. Snake venom may contain toxins that can damage such blood vessels. We are investigating whether there are specific toxins that can selectively inhibit the growth of these vessels.
So you examine both the harmful and the potentially beneficial effects?
Exactly. It cuts both ways. We study how snake venom damages the body and try to develop antivenom, but while investigating those negative effects, you sometimes also discover possible medical applications.
Globally, around 100,000 people die each year from snakebites, yet the problem receives relatively little attention. Most victims live in poorer regions with limited political or economic influence, which means the issue rarely makes it onto the global agenda. Developing and distributing antivenom is also complicated. It is expensive to produce, often requires refrigeration, and must match the local snake species. As a result, it is difficult to make it available where it is needed most.
You recently received a Rubicon grant from NWO for research into poisonous toads. What is that about?
I will be studying how the venom of cane toads has evolved. We will compare toads in South America, where they have existed for hundreds of thousands of years, with a population in Australia that has only been there for about a century. They were introduced to combat an agricultural pest, but that did not work. However, their venom is deadly to many native animals that have not evolved alongside them.
In South America, a balance has developed over hundreds of thousands of years between the toads and the animals that prey on them. In Australia, that balance does not exist. We will collect venom and analyse it here at the VU, in the lab of Jeroen Kool (Associate Professor of Bioanalytical Chemistry), to map the differences. It may be that the venom in Australia is much less complex, because predators have not developed resistance. Or it could be more complex, because different predators are involved.
What I find intriguing is that venom is always part of an evolutionary arms race. You see this clearly in snakes: a snake evolves slightly more potent venom to kill its prey, while that prey develops ways to defend itself. And so it continues back and forth. It is like a game of chess between predator and prey.
Many people are afraid of snakes and other venomous animals. What does that say about us?
Part of that fear is cultural. People often assume that venomous automatically means dangerous, but that is not true. I myself keep a few scorpions at home, including some dangerous ones. People immediately think: venomous, therefore dangerous. But it is not that simple. Worldwide, there are hundreds of thousands of venomous animals – scorpions, frogs, butterflies – yet only a very small percentage are actually dangerous to humans.
There are tens of thousands of spider species, for instance, but only a few are truly life-threatening. Still, many people are afraid of all spiders. To me, that says something about how far removed we have become from nature. We no longer grow up with it, we do not know it, and what is unfamiliar quickly feels threatening. Perhaps that is also why I find it important to talk about it. Knowledge can hopefully take away some of that fear.
And it goes beyond fear. If we flatten a tropical rainforest, we may also be losing molecules that, in fifteen years’ time, could help people with diseases such as cancer.
You recently took part in Expeditie Robinson. Did it feel like a return to nature?
Absolutely. When we first arrived on the island, there was literally nothing. No shelter, no fire, no food. We had to arrange everything ourselves. You then see how everyone naturally finds their role. For me, it felt like coming home as a biologist. I recognised plants and knew which ones were edible.
Because everything is so basic – making fire, finding water, building a place to sleep – the other stimuli fall away. You have no phone or diary, and that naturally creates space to think. It made me realise that I sometimes do not pause enough to appreciate what I get to do. That I should not just move from one highlight to the next. On an island like that, you notice how far removed you can be from nature, while at the same time finding everything that truly matters within it.
