Personal information
- Professor Drug Design & Synthesis in the division of Medicinal Chemistry
- Head of Department Chemistry & Pharmaceutical Sciences
- Founding scientist of De Novo Pharmaceuticals Ltd. (1999)
- Founding scientist of IOTA Pharmaceuticals Ltd. (2008)
- Founding scientist of Griffin Discoveries B.V. (2009)
Career
Prof. De Esch studied Organic Chemistry at Radboud University Nijmegen. From 1994 to 1998, he performed his PhD studies at the Department of Pharmacochemistry at VU University (promotor: prof. Timmerman) and at the University of Cambridge. Subsequently, he performed post-doctoral research in the Drug Design Group at the University of Cambridge (UK). The research of this academic group resulted in the biotech De Novo Pharmaceuticals, which De Esch co-founded in 2000 and where he worked as a group leader and project leader.
He returned to academia in 2003 and became assistant and subsequently associate professor in the research group of Medicinal Chemistry at the VU. He established the successful research line fragment-based drug design and became co-founder of the spin-offs IOTA Pharmaceuticals (2007) en Griffin Discoveries (2009). In 2011, he was awarded the Galenus Research Price for his work on fragment-based drug discovery and the valorisation of his research. Prof. De Esch has received many research grants, amongst others from Top Institute Pharma, Technology Foundation STW, EU-FP7 and the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI). He is the coordinator of a large European network called FRAGNET that aims to further develop fragment-based drug design approaches.
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