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Pharmacological tool developed by VU Medicinal Chemists to study inflammation

VUF8430 is a selective agonist of the histamine H4 receptor that has been discovered and pharmacologically characterized by Rogier Smits and Herman Lim during their PhD projects in the Medicinal Chemistry Division of the VU. Recently VUF8430 has been included in the chemical catalogues of Ovata Chemicals and Tocris Bioscience, making this pharmacological tool generally available to the study of H4R-mediated inflammation.

Together with Prof. Rob Leurs and Dr. Iwan de Esch, Dr. Rogier Smits later founded Griffin Discoveries, a research-based molecular design company that spun out of the Medicinal Chemistry group from VU University Amsterdam in 2009. Dr. Herman Lim recently joined Griffin Discoveries, which develops innovative G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) targeting drugs for therapeutic areas with unmet clinical need. The expertise of Dr. Lim is a valuable addition to Griffins’ drug discovery team that currently focuses its efforts on novel antagonists for histamine receptors.