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 - 2020

January 15th, 2020 - Mee Jung Ko, 5th year PULSe graduate student in the lab successfully defended her thesis "Molecular mechanisms of G protein-coupled receptor signaling in the modulation of anxiety, Fear and Pain" completing her final requirement in the program. Congratulations to Dr. Mee Jung Ko!!

News - 2019

December 9th, 2019 - Our paper "The meta-position of Phe4 in leu-enkephalin regulates potency, selectivity, functional activity and signaling bias at the delta and mu opioid receptors" has been accepted for publication in Molecules and will be part of the special issue: "Opioids and Their Receptors Present and Emerging Concepts in Opioid Drug Discovery"
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December 3rd, 2019 - We are excited to have Yazan Meqbil join the Van Rijn lab. Yazan is a first year MCMP graduate student. Yazan will be heavily involved in studying molecular and genetic aspects of biased opioid receptor signaling. Welcome Yazan!

November 13th, 2019 - Dr. Van Rijn by Stan Jastrzebski from WBAA, Purdue's local NPR station about the recent publication of our kratom project.

October 28th, 2019 - On invitation by Dr. James Graham, Dr. van Rijn will serve on the advisory committee for a NCCIH-funded project, NAPRALERT. NAPRALERT is a database of natural products including marine and microorganisms paired with in vitro, in vivo and clinical datasets for these products that is part of a P50 botanical center at the University of Illinois Chicago.

October 23rd, 2019 - Dr. van Rijn was invited to the Department of Pharmaceutical Science at the University of Illinois Chicago to give a seminar on "Identification of natural and synthetic opioids to treat neurological disorders​"

October 21th, 2019 - Mee Jung Ko presented her poster "β-arrestin-dependent opioid signaling positively contributes to reduced conditioned fear and anxiety-like behavior " at the Society for Neuroscience symposium.

October 16th, 2019 - A paper by the Krusemark lab "Selection of DNA-encoded Libraries to Protein Targets Within and On Living Cells" that we collaborated on has been accepted by the Journal of the American Chemical Society

​October 15th, 2019 - Our paper "G protein-biased kratom-alkaloids and synthetic carfentanil-amide opioids as potential treatments for alcohol use disorder" has been accepted for publication in the British Journal of Pharmacology

September 30th, 2019 - Mee Jung Ko presented a Brain Korea 21 seminar at Konkuk University titled" Opioid receptor signaling in emotions"

September 25th, 2019 - Mee Jung Ko presented a poster titled "Molecular Mechanisms of G protein-coupled receptor signaling in the modulation of anxiety and conditioned fear" (P32.32) at the international Brain Research Organization conference in Daegu, South Korea

September 16th, 2019 - Mee Jung Ko was invited by the Purdue PULSe office to present her work and talk about her experience attending CSHL ion channel course to the first and second year PULSe students.

September 4th, 2019 - The Van Rijn lab is excited to announce that Jinling Yuan will join as our new lab and animal manager, starting September 16th. Welcome Jinling!

September 3rd, 2019 - Dr. Van Rijn was invited to present a research seminar in the Purdue Biochemistry Department Seminar series. The talk was titled "Novel devlopments in opioid receptor pharmacology: Being biased isn't necessarily bad"

August 2nd, 2019 - Congratulations to Mee Jung Ko for receiving a travel award from the Purdue Institute for Integrative Neuroscience.

July 24th, 2019 - Angel Lin and Hongyu Su presenting their summer research projects at the OUR summer symposium.

July 9-10th, 2019 - Dr. Van Rijn is giving a talk and a poster at the International Narcotics Research Conference in New York describing newly synthesized delta opioid receptor peptide with varying degrees of signaling bias and beta-arrestin recruitment efficacy. This is ongoing work performed by Robert Cassell in collaboration with the Trader, Lill labs and the Altman lab in Kansas University.

May 21st, 2019 - Dr. Van Rijn has accepted a request to serve on the editorial board of Scientific Reports, an open-access journal published by the Nature Publishing Group.

April 26th, 2019 - Mee Jung Ko's abstract was selected for an oral presentation at the 5th Midwest Membrane trafficking and signaling symposium.

April 25th, 2019 - Dr. Van Rijn visited the Department of Pschiatry at the University of Illinois Chicago and presented a seminar entitled "Better living through biased signaling".

April 22nd, 2019 - Arryn Blaine successfully defended her original proposal and is admitted to the PhD candidacy of the Purdue Life Sciences (PULSe) PhD program. Congratulations Arryn!!​

April 12th, 2019 - The Purdue board of trustees has approved tenure and promotion to associate professor to Dr. van Rijn, starting August 12th.

April 8th, 2019 - Congratulations to Mee Jung Ko for receiving a Research grant from the Purdue Research Foundation to spent her last year as a graduate student investigating spatial and temporal aspects of biased ERK signaling. Way to go Mee Jung!

April 6-9, 2019 - Anna Gutridge and Robert Cassell are presenting  at Experimental Biology 2019 in Orlando with their posters "Therapeutic potential of G-protein biased kratom-derived and synthetic carfentanil-amide opioids for alcohol use disorder" and "Identification of a critical amino acid position in delta opioid receptor peptides that confers G protein bias" respectively

April 5th, 2019 - Mee Jung has been accepted into the "ion channels in synaptic & neural circuit physiology" course of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories held June 4-24th, where she will receive hands on training in electrophysiology. Congratulations Mee Jung!

April 4th, 2019 - Congratulations to Mee Jung Ko for receiving the 2019 PULSe Outstanding Graduate Student in Teaching Award (to be awarded on April 15th at the PULSe spring reception. Mee Jung was an excellent TA in MCMP544 and is an extremely capable undergraduate student mentor.

April 2nd, 2019 - Mee Jung Ko received a travel award from the Society for Neuroscience to attend the 2019 International Brain Research Organization world congress of neuroscience in Daegu, South Korea. Congratulations Mee Jung!  

March 27th, 2019 - Congratulations to Anna Gutridge for successfully defending her original proposal and becoming a PhD candidate. 

March 1st, 2019 - Congratulations to Mee Jung Ko for winning 1st place in the neuroscience and neurodegenerative diseases category of the Purdue University Health and Disease poster session.

February 27th, 2019 - Congratulations to Mee Jung Ko and Grace Mulia for the acceptance of their paper "Commonly used anesthesia/ euthanasia methods for brain collection differentially impact MAPK activity in male and female C57BL/6 mice​" in Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience.

February 27th, 2019 - Congratulations to Robert Cassell for receiving a travel award from the Purdue College of Pharmacy to attend the 2019 Experimental Biology conference in Orlando on April 6-9 

February 27th, 2019 - Congratulations to Mee Jung Ko for receiving a travel award from the Purdue College of Pharmacy to attend the 2019 International Brain Research Organization conference in Daegu, South Korea on September 21-25.

February 4th. 2019 - Congratulations to Meridith Robins for getting her manuscript entitled "repeated use of the psychoactive substance ethylphenidate impacts neurochemistry and reward learning in adolescent male and female mice" accepted in Frontiers in Neuroscience. Also congratulations to co-authors Arryn Blaine and undergraduate Ellen Ha, and thanks to our collaborator Dr. Amy Brewster.

January 17th, 2019 - Congratulations to Anna Gutridge for receiving a travel award from ASPET to attend the 2019 meeting.

January 11th, 2019 - Congratulations to Mee Jung Ko on her first author  paper in collaboration with the Fai lab providing "Critical evaluation of TRPA1-mediated locomotive behavior in zebrafish as a screening tool for novel anti-nociceptive drug discovery.​" which has been accepted for publication in Scientific Reports. Arbaaz Mukadam is a co-author on this paper. This project was initiated by Mee Jung Ko and Logan Ganzen who received $2000 pilot funding from the Purdue Institute for Integrative Neuroscience.

January 9th, 2019 - Anna Gutridge received a travel award from the Purdue Institute for Integrative Neuroscience to attend the 2019 ASPET meeting in Orlando to present her work on kratom in alcohol use disorder.
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January 3rd, 2019 - Purdue University made a press release highlighting our recent paper describing rubiscolin peptides as novel G-protein biased delta opioid receptor agonists, that have the potential to have in vivo efficacy in animal models of chronic pain, alcohol use disorder and mood disorders.

January 2nd, 2019 - Dr. Marc Siegel mentioned the adenylyl cyclase 1 inhibitor, we helped characterize in vivo in a model for inflammatory pain as a medical innovation in an opinion piece on the Fox News website.
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RECENT PUBLICATIONS

December 9th, 2019 - Our paper "The meta-position of Phe4 in leu-enkephalin regulates potency, selectivity, functional activity and signaling bias at the delta and mu opioid receptors" has been accepted for publication in Molecules and will be part of the special issue: "Opioids and Their Receptors Present and Emerging Concepts in Opioid Drug Discovery"

October 16th, 2019 - A paper by the Krusemark lab "Selection of DNA-encoded Libraries to Protein Targets Within and On Living Cells" that we collaborated on has been accepted by the Journal of the American Chemical Society

October 15th, 2019 - Our paper "G protein-biased kratom-alkaloids and synthetic carfentanil-amide opioids as potential treatments for alcohol use disorder" has been accepted for publication in the British Journal of Pharmacology

October 2nd, 2019 - We deposited our pre-print "beta-arrestin depedendent ERK signaling positively correlates with reduced anxiety-like and conditioned fear-related behavior in mice " on BioRxiv

April 1st, 2019 - Our review of recently developed G protein-biased kappa opioid receptor agonists and their therapeutic potential has been accepted for publication in Frontiers in Pharmacology.

February 27th, 2019 - Our paper describing how different methods for euthanasia influence basal MAPK activity in male and female mice has been accepted for publication in Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience.

February 4th, 2019 - Our paper describing how repeated use of the psychoactive substance ethylphenidate impacts neurochemistry and reward learning in adolescent male and female mice has been accepted for publication in Frontiers in Neuroscience.

January 11th, 2019 - Our paper in collaboration with the Fai lab providing "Critical evaluation of TRPA1-mediated locomotive behavior in zebrafish as a screening tool for novel anti-nociceptive drug discovery.​" has been accepted for publication in Scientific Reports.
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.