Metal-Based Drugs: Past, Present and Future

Dear Colleagues,

The drug discovery process is a challenging multi-step path towards the identification of potential new medicines. New drugs are needed to prevent a disease, to fight against a pathology or to diagnose a medical condition when there are currently no suitable medical products. The pharmaceutical potential of metals and their derivatives has been recognized for millennia in very different cultures, and with the advent of modern medicine, several metal-based drugs have been approved in clinical treatment as effective therapeutic tools. Indeed, a large variety of metal compounds show significant bioactivity against a range of diseases. For instance, a number of metal complexes have been developed for the treatment/cure of a variety of disorders, such as diabetes, ulcers, inflammatory and cardiovascular diseases, cancers and so on. The study of metal-based drugs represents an important part of modern bioinorganic chemistry. This Special Issue aims to provide a survey of the most recent studies concerning the computational drug discovery, design, synthesis, specific or non-specific carriers (nanoparticles, liposomes, cyclodextrins, etc.), characterization, mechanism of action, pharmacokinetic studies, etc.. of new metal drugs. In addition, studies concerning their in vivo/in vitro therapeutic properties, and therefore their possible use in the medical field, for the treatment of different diseases are of great interest.

This Special Issue will cover a selection of recent research and review articles in the field of metal-based drugs used in medicine. Studies without biological activity but whose biological activity is expected are also welcome. We encourage the submission of purely in silico studies, as well as computational studies with experimental validation. It is a pleasure for us to invite you to submit a manuscript to this Special Issue.

Prof. Dr. Adriana Corina Hangan
Prof. Dr. Roxana Liana Lucaciu
Guest Editors

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