Invitation to Open Lecture by Prof. Holger Stark - October 23, 2024
Dear Sir/Madam, we cordially invite you to an open lecture, which will take place in the conference room of IF PAN on October 23, 2024, at 12:00 PM.
The lecture titled "Histamine H3 Receptor Antagonists in Drug Development – From Selectivity to Promiscuity" will be delivered by Prof. Holger Stark from the Institute of Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Chemistry at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf.
Prof. Holger Stark is a pharmacist by education and did his PhD in Medicinal Chemistry under the supervision of Prof. W. Schunack at the Free University of Berlin, Germany, in 1991 on newly designed prodrugs (BF2.94). During his habilitation at the same University, he worked on neurotransmitter ligands, mainly at dopamine and histamine receptor subtypes for the central nervous system. In 2000, he became a full professor at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, and went in 2013 to the Heinrich-Heine-University in Düsseldorf, Germany, where he has his actual position.
He has founded some start-up companies on cancer therapeutics (Warburg Glycomed, PSites Pharma) and has received several prizes for his successful research as well as for teaching. In 2016, he received an honorate doctorate from the University of Nis, Serbia. In more than 390 book contributions, original papers, reviews, and patents, he has focused on neurotransmitter and lipid signaling research. Some highlights are the developments of novel pharmacological tools for imaging and ligands with designed selectivity. He is a co-inventor of pitolisant (Wakix®), the first histamine H3 receptor antagonist approved for treatment of narcolepsy with or without catalepsy, and has prepared some backup (pre)clinical candidates in different leads for various therapeutic targets. From 2004 – 2019, prof. Holger Stark was editor-in-chief of the Archiv der Pharmazie – Chemistry in Life Sciences, one of the oldest journals on Medicinal Chemistry. Since 2023, he has been the president of the Histamine Research Society Europe (HRSE).
Prof. Holger Stark has more than 390 original papers, review articles, and book contributions (h-factor 45-65), more than 830 national and international lectures and poster presentations, and 11 international patents with more than 70 national and divisional filings.
