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About the Winner

Charles Kristensen is the founder and a milker at Spider Pharm, a home-based business that specializes in production of venoms from spiders, centipedes, scorpions, and other invertebrates, which are sold to research labs throughout the world. His work is wacky, indeed, to the point of insanity, because at any given time, 2 people are collecting, breeding, and milking tens of thousands of spiders from hundreds of different species with different requirements while trying to keep up with research in diverse areas of chemistry, biology, medicine, and agricultural sciences.

The meritorious goal is to promote the exploration of these valuable resources as possible therepeutics, such as in treating diabetes, cardiac issues, stroke issues, incontinence, epilepsy, and pain research, among others.

Notably, Kristensen was a scientific consultant for the movie Arachnophobia, and has been featured on Ripley's and helped with shoots for The Mythbusters TV show.