Bioinorganic chemistry

Emma Raven

Emma Raven was born in Northamptonshire and obtained a BSc in Chemistry from the University of Leicester. Her interest in metalloproteins originated during PhD studies at Newcastle University with the late Geoff Sykes. She subsequently moved to the University of British Columbia (Vancouver) to Grant Mauk's laboratory, where she worked on a number of heme-containing proteins. In 1994, to her everlasting surprise, she was offered a lectureship at the University of Leicester where she is currently Professor of Biological Chemistry.

Nicholas E. Le Brun

Nicholas E. Le Brun obtained his BSc and PhD from the University of East Anglia (UEA), working with Andrew Thomson and Geoff Moore on applying spectroscopy to the study of iron-storage proteins. Following a Wellcome Trust Fellowship at UEA, he moved as an EMBO Fellow to the Department of Microbiology at Lund University, Sweden, where, in the lab of Lars Hederstedt, he learned the joys of microbial genetics. In 1999 he was appointed to a lectureship in the School of Chemistry at UEA, where he is currently Professor of Biological Chemistry.

Jonathan McMaster

Jonathan McMaster obtained his BA in Chemistry from the University of Oxford. His completed his PhD at the University of Manchester with Professor C. D. Garner in 1995 before working with Professor P. H. Reiger's group at Brown University. Subsequently, Jon worked in Professor J. H. Enemark's laboratory at The University of Arizona, USA on the Mo-containing enzyme sulfite oxidase and synthetic analogues of its active site before returning to the UK, and to Nottingham, where he is currently an Associate Professor in Inorganic Chemistry.

Jan Reedijk

Jan Reedijk obtained his PhD from Leiden University (1968), working on the coordination chemistry of acetonitrile. After a few years as postdoc and junior lecturer in Leiden, where he developed his bioinorganic interests, he served as Reader in Inorganic and Physical Chemistry at Delft University of Technology (1972–1979). In 1979 he was called to the chair of Inorganic Chemistry at Leiden University, a position he held for 30 years, till he retired from his full-time job in 2009. He currently is part-time honorary professor at King Saud University (Riyadh) and emeritus professor in Leiden University.

Nigel J. Robinson

Nigel J. Robinson obtained his BSc and PhD from Liverpool University, working with David Thurman on metal homeostasis. Supported by Fellowships from the Natural Environment Research Council, and the Director's Office of Los Alamos National Laboratory, he worked with Paul Jackson at LANL (1984–1987) then held a Royal Society University Research Fellowship at Durham University. In 1994 he was appointed to the chair of Genetics at Newcastle University and in 2011 to the Biophysical Sciences Institute, Biology Chair, in Durham.

The idea of a special issue in Bioinorganic Chemistry for Dalton Transactions was originally suggested to one of us (ER) by Jamie Humphrey (Editor of Dalton Transactions) at least four years ago. The motivation was to try to capture, in a single issue, a collection of articles that were broad enough to showcase the diversity of the discipline, and to highlight how modern methods of spectroscopy, crystallography, molecular biology and enzymology can be applied to the study of metal ions in biology. We wanted, most of all, to highlight the continuing contribution and importance of inorganic chemistry in biology.

In browsing the issue – be that as a die-hard aficionado of the area, as a more casual reader, or indeed as someone wishing to delve for the first time into the subject – it is worth taking pause for thought and remembering the evolution of the discipline over a relatively short period. Even as little as perhaps 50 years ago the idea that metal ions had any role in biology appealed only to a small minority of evangelist believers. Since then, the semi-believers and the outright unbelievers have disappeared into the background as an overwhelming body of evidence has accumulated in the foreground to categorically demonstrate the diversity of roles that inorganic metal ions play in biology. One only has to glance at early texts in Bioinorganic Chemistry to see that the field as it was as little as 25 years ago is almost unrecognizable today. The late Bob Hay's pocket-sized but fully comprehensive guide from 1987 – one of the first books to appear¹ – somehow manages in its 200-odd pages to summarise the entire discipline. To do the same today would have required a truly herculean effort, and we did not attempt it. Instead, over the past year or so, my co-editors (Nick Le Brun, Jon McMaster, Jan Reedijk and Nigel Robinson) and I have been working together to produce an issue that celebrates both the excitement and the scope of the area. We have divided the issue into five sections. The articles cover:

• The structure and spectroscopy of Mo- and W-containing enzymes and their analogues (a Perspective from Hille and articles from Enemark, Sarkar, Itoh and Basu)

• The role of Fe/S clusters in assembly, catalysis and regulation (Communications from Cowan, and articles from Fontecilla-Camps, Ding, Unden and Johnson)

• The reactivity and function of heme proteins (Perspectives from Poulos, Wilmot and Anderson, and articles from Mauk, Dubois and Raven)

• The interaction of metal ions with DNA (a Communication from Lippard and articles from Berners-Price, Sadler and Aldrich-Wright)

• The roles in general of metal ions in cells (a Perspective from New, a Communication from Merkx and articles from Hider, Dennison and Farhni)

All of us would like to thank the authors for their contributions and for (more or less) meeting the production deadlines for the issue. And to my co-editors, who did the lion's share of the work for this issue and whose persuasive (and, at times, diplomatic) skills were found to be second to none, as well as to Matthew Cude and Jamie Humphrey in the Dalton Transactions office, I extend my own grateful thanks. We all hope that you enjoy reading the articles.

Emma Raven

Nick Le Brun

Jon McMaster

Jan Reedijk

Nigel Robinson

References

1. R. W. Hay, Bioinorganic Chemistry, Ellis Horwood Publishers, Chichester, 1987.

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