CapitainData/UmojaHack-Africa-2022-African-Snake-Antivenom-Binding-Challenge-ADVANCED-

# UmojaHack Africa 2022: African Snake Antivenom Binding Challenge (ADVANCED) UmojaHack Africa 2022: African Snake Antivenom Binding Challenge (ADVANCED) Snake bites cause more than 100 000 deaths and more than 300 000 permanent disfigurements every year, caused by toxin proteins in snake venom. Injury and death from snake bites is more common in poor socioeconomic conditionss and has historically received limited funding for discovery, development, and delivery of new treatment options. Currently, the only effective treatment against snakebite envenoming consists of unspecified cocktails of polyclonal antibodies extracted from immunised production animals.These antivenom antibodies work unreliably across different species of snake, and until recently little data existed on which of the 2000+ snake venom toxins they bind, as well as where the binding of the antibody to the toxin occurs. To address this issue, a recent study used high-density peptide microarray (HDPM) technology with all currently available African snake toxin protein sequences, together with eight commercial antivenoms in clinical use in Africa to better understand how antivenoms bind to specific snake venom toxins. In this challenge, you are tasked to build a machine learning model to predict how strongly a given string of amino acids from a snake venom toxin protein binds to eight different commercial antivenom antibodies. Your solutions will help predict what other toxins a given antivenom could be effective against (or neutralise), rapidly improving patient treatment. In the long term, this work leads to a whole new generation of snake bite treatments based on specific engineered antibodies - understanding where antibodies might bind a given toxin will ultimately contribute to this work.