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Enade Istyastono wins Henk Timmerman Award

PhD student Enade Istyastono of the Division of Medicinal Chemistry obtained the prestigious Henk Timmerman Award for his research on computational medicinal chemistry. The Henk Timmerman Award honors outstanding young Indonesian researchers who are working in the area of pharmaceutical sciences.

Enade Istyastono presented his prize winning work on October 15th at the International Seminar on Medicinal Chemistry in Surabaya, Indonesia. He received the award from Henk Timmerman himself, an emeritus professor at VU University who first introduced medicinal chemistry to Indonesia 25 years ago. 

Histamine H4 receptor
Enade Istyastono develops computational methods to discover and design small bioactive molecules (ligands) that can modulate the activity of pharmaceutically relevant proteins, like receptors and enzymes. Recently, Enade Istyastono elucidated the binding orientation of ligands in the histamine H4 receptor, a key player in inflammation. He obtained these results by incorporating experimental pharmacological data into three-dimensional protein-ligand interaction models.

This study was recently published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry and is part of TI Pharma G-protein Coupled Receptor Forum PhD project. Enade Istyastono worked under the supervision of Dr. Chris de Graaf, Dr. Iwan de Esch, and Professor Dr. Rob Leurs.