The mission of the Van Rijn lab is to uncover new strategies to treat psychiatric and neurological disorders. We specifically investigate the heavily co-morbid triad of ​drug use disorders, chronic pain disorders and mood disorders. Our primary target, the ​delta opioid receptor, is involved in the neuropharmacology of all three disorders and thus offers an exciting novel approach to treat these disorders. The Van Rijn lab covers all aspects of preclinical drug development including drug synthesis, drug screening, pharmacological characterization both in vitro and in vivo. We also perform mechanistic studies to improve our understanding of the etiology of these disorders.

News - 2021

January 11th, 2021 - Congratulations to Arryn Blaine for winning best poster during the PULSe Graduate recruitment event.
Donate to science.
If you appreciate the research carried out in the Van Rijn lab and support our goals feel free to donate to the advancement of science. Donations will be used to help support (undergraduate) students and carry out experiments exploring exciting new preliminary projects, currently not funded through other mechanisms.
Donations can be made by specifically mentioning the Van Rijn lab at the following Purdue University website:

Purdue Research Foundation: Giving to Purdue

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RECENT PUBLICATIONS

December 6th, 2020 - Mee Jung Ko's thesis project manuscript "beta-arrestin depedendent ERK signaling positively correlates with reduced anxiety-like and conditioned fear-related behavior in mice" has been accepted for publication in Science Signaling.

December 2nd, 2020 - The Riley/Van Rijn manuscript   "Isolation and Pharmacological Characterization of Six Opioidergic pricalima Nitada Alkaloids." has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Natural Products.

November 25th, 2020 - A paper by the Watts lab that we collaborated on, titled "The CUL3/neddylation inhibitor MLN4924 reduces ethanol-induced locomotor sensitization and inflammatory pain allodynia in mice" has been accepted for publication in Behavioural Brain Research

October 11th, 2020 - A paper by Dr. Pradhan at UIC "A non-convulsant DOR agonist, KNT-127, reduces cortical spreading depression and nitroglycerin induced allodynia", that Dr. van Rijn collaborated on was accepted by the journal Headache
Disclaimer of opinion
The information, statements and opinions presented on the the Van Rijn lab website are solely expressed by Dr. van Rijn and do not necessarily represent views held by Purdue University.