The Clodomiro Picado Institute (ICP) of the University of Costa Rica has more than 30 years of experience working with snake venoms with the aim of improving antivenin serums and studying their characteristics in order to develop products with different immunological and pharmacological applications that benefit the local population.

Among the most innovative and impactful efforts supported by CRUSA was a project to develop and patent a strategy for using bacterial toxins in gene therapy for solid tumors. The project aims to use genetically modified bacteria to destroy solid tumor cells. To date, researchers have been successful in identifying, extracting, and duplicating a protein that would make it possible to destroy solid tumors, but are still experimenting with different methods of introducing the protein to the tumor mass.