The International Society on Toxinology (IST) unites scientists and clinicians studying venoms, poisons, and toxins from all over the world. The society was founded in 1962. It organizes world and regional congresses, publishes the journal Toxicon, and sponsors the prestigious Redi Award.

A duplication of the chromosomal region 2q23.q23.2, carrying LYPD6 and LYPD6B genes, leads to intellectual disability and autistic features. Researchers from the Neurotransmitter and Neuroreceptor Bioengineering Laboratory, Shemyakin-Ovchnnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of RAS together with colleagues from Lomonosov State University and Institute for Biomedical Problems of RAS, used a mouse model to study the consequences of overexpression of the Lypd6 and Lypd6b proteins in the brain, which is typical for patients with autism and other neuropsychiatric disorders.

The application of the definition of taxonomic species to the description of evolutionary history of biological objects with chimeric genomes is a difficult task. The limited period of the existence of species and the lability of viral genomes can also make attempts to reconstruct the evolutionary history almost pointless. The processes of genetic exchange seem to be especially pronounced in temperate phages, but genetic rearrangements between evolutionarily close groups of phages can also affect φ29-like phages. However, we can try to plot the evolutionary traits of genes encoding separate essential proteins and their stable complexes.