Surrounded by boxes housing his deadly charges – taipans, tiger snakes, king browns – Mr Collett deftly immobilises a snake's head as it sprays venom into a vial. In 10 years of working with snakes, he has never been bitten.

The 10 most venomous snakes in the world are all found in Australia. The reptile park, at Somersby on the NSW central coast, is the chief supplier of venom used by pharmaceutical company bioCSL to make antivenoms which neutralise their effects. The company distributes 2500 vials of snake antivenom around the country every year.

Each snake species has unique venom. Some affects the nervous system, causing paralysis that can lead to heart failure. Other components can destroy blood cells or tissue, or cause blood clots or haemorrhaging.

Toxins in tiger snake venom consume the clotting protein so the blood cannot clot, putting victims at risk of major bleeding. To demonstrate how swiftly it affects blood, Mr Collett, the park's venom program supervisor, injected a dish of his own with fresh venom from a tiger snake. Within four minutes, it was like jelly.

Australians are most likely to encounter snakes during the summer months but leading toxicologist Geoffrey Isbister said 20 snake bites – an unusually high number – were recorded in October. On average there are 60 to 100 severe snake envenomings each year. Only one might be fatal, but in a bad year as many as five people will die from snake bites.

Improving treatments for snake bite victims will be the focus of a new centre of research excellence for venom and antivenom, to be established at the University of Newcastle. Professor Isbister will lead research at the centre, the first in Australia.

With $2.5 million in funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, the centre will bring together Australian and Sri Lankan experts to run clinical trials, improve understanding of antivenom dosage and investigate envenoming in high-risk countries.

Professor Isbister said they aimed to develop a bedside testing kit to ensure snake bite victims were diagnosed and given antivenom as early as possible.

"In Australia a lot of snake bites are in rural regions and those hospitals, although they have anti-venom, don't have a laboratory that can do many of the tests that we need," he said. "[Patients] need to be getting the antivenom within three hours for it to be effective."

But sometimes even rapid treatment cannot save a victim.

"People can collapse from the brown snake bite within 30 minutes ... a small number of patients die at that point," Professor Isbister said. "That's the major cause of death from snake bite in Australia."

So how to avoid being bitten? Professor Isbister advised people to wear long pants, boots or enclosed shoes when bushwalking. "In thongs and shorts, if you run into a snake, you're fair game," he said.

And never try to pick a snake up. "Seventy-five per cent of men get bitten on the hands, [compared to] 25 per cent of women ... so that tells you something about human behaviour," Professor Isbister said. "If you see a snake, the best thing is to stand completely still and then slowly walk away from it."