Local adventurer shares excitement of biological safaris
     CEO transforms lifelong love of nature into vocation
      by Cohe Bolin, Reporter

"Mr Nabors’ [high school teacher] altruistic efforts not only gained my attention in class, but they were the beginning of my lifelong pursuit."
Terry Fredeking,guest speaker

   He has traveled the world in search of venom, blood and saliva, a local adventurer told a South Campus audience last month.
   Such expeditions may seem out of the excitement realm for most adventurers, but Terry Fredeking is different.
   Known as “The Hunter” since high school, Fredeking, the CEO of Antibody Systems Inc., uses these components to help create antibodies for viruses.
   He has studied and tested vampire bats, Komodo dragons, Tasmanian devils and various other types of animals all over the world.
   “In my teen years, I did not pursue academic achievement,” he said.
   Instead, Fredeking said, he focused attention on his adventurous encounters with the animals of Fossil Creek in northeast Fort Worth.
   Much to his parent’s consternation, he said he would often take Fossil Creek’s inhabitants home for personal pets: squirrels, snakes and even a hawk.
   Today, Fredeking still hunts; only he brings home some of the most exotic animals in the world … or substances from them.
   Fredeking gives credit for his success to his high school biology teacher. Aware of Fredeking’s reputation as The Hunter, Robert Nabors, asked Fredeking to take him on a tour of Fossil Creek. Fredeking said his teacher explained that every great hunter should have some knowledge of biology, such as knowing that certain types of moss grow on the north side of trees.
   “Mr. Nabors’ altruistic efforts not only gained my attention in class, but they were the beginning of my lifelong pursuit,” he said.
   By his late 20s, Fredeking had become director of a community blood center, director of a community plasmapheresis center and owner of plasmapheresis centers located throughout the southwest.
   “Although academia still didn’t appeal to me, biology became a passion,” he said.
   Fredeking said he used his memory and his initiative to study independently to gain the knowledge that would have normally required years of education at a university.
   In the past 15 years, the “Indiana Jones of Expeditionary Biology” has conducted numerous worldwide expeditions to obtain animal proteins for pharmaceutical and university research.
   Fredeking said he gathered the saliva of the vampire bat in Mexico, saliva of the Mexican and South American leech and venom from Africa’s Gaboon viper and burrowing adder for the development of blood thinning products.
   A rare parasite found only in the Tasmanian devil is currently being tested at the University of Texas at Arlington in collaboration with Antibody Systems for possible anti-inflammatory uses, Fredeking said.
   The Tasmanian devil is not the only exotic animal that the local university is studying.
   The saliva, blood and tissue from the Komodo dragon are also being studied at UTA and other research organizations to understand its unique resistance to bacterial infections, Fredeking said.
   In his mid 30s, he founded Antibody Associates, which later evolved into Antibody Systems, a leading supplier of raw materials for diagnostic and therapeutic products for national and international pharmaceutical companies.
   Antibody Systems has produced raw materials for such developmental products as Hepatitis B Vaccine, Rho-D, B-PIG, and IND (Investigational New Drug) vaccines to produce hyperimmune plasma and infectious disease diagnostic controls.
   Even though he is a self-educated man, Fredeking encourages young people to pursue a college education.
  Still the hunter, he said his quests now lie in contributing to the resolutions of today’s medical challenges.
   Anyone wanting additional information about Antibody Systems Inc or Terry Fredeking can call 817-498-8222 or write to Antibody Systems, Inc., P.O. Box 212022, Bedford, Texas 76095.