Metal Coordination Complexes in Biological Systems

Dear Colleagues,

Metal complexes and inorganic salts are used for medicinal purposes since ancient times. Antimony was used by Assyrians for urinary tract afflictions. Antimony compounds were used in Europe from the Middle Ages until the nineteenth century as laxatives and “humor cleansers.” Today, antimony salts are employed against schistosomiasis and leishmaniasis. Other metal compounds currently used in medicine include gold(I) complexes such as aurothiomalate (Myocrisin), aurothioglucose (Solganol), aurothiopropanol sulfonate (Allochrysin), and the oral drug auranofin (Ridaura) for the treatment of difficult cases of rheumatoid arthritis (37), bismuth subcitrate, and subsalicylate are for the treatment of diarrhea, dyspepsia and gastric ulcers, and the world-famous cisplatin for cancer chemotherapy.

Metal complexes are less abundant medicines than the purely organic small molecules, mainly due to the difficulty in establishing high-throughput screening and synthesis methods for their preparation and evaluation, in addition to the higher cost of production of molecules incorporating one or more metal atoms. Nevertheless, metal complexes have been continuously and increasingly investigated as promising sources of innovative drugs for challenging pathologies such as cancer, metabolic diseases, microbial infection, and neglected tropical diseases.

The topic “Metal Coordination Complexes in Medicine” welcomes contributions that describe interesting advances in the field or identify new targets for metals in biological systems. The submitted papers can encompass both research articles and critical reviews, the latter of which is expected to direct readers to new avenues of research in metal drug development.

Dr. Susana Santos Braga
Dr. Filipe Alexandre Almeida Paz
Topic Editors