Themed Issue on “Metallodrugs: Activation, Targeting, and Delivery”

In 1965, the seminal paper by Barnett Rosenberg appeared in Nature, describing the anti-proliferative properties of a very simple inorganic compound, now known as Cisplatin. This discovery, and the subsequent clinical approval of Cisplatin, has led to literally thousands of subsequent papers, and it has arguably given birth to the field of medicinal inorganic chemistry. Now, just over 50 years after Rosenberg's seminal discovery, the field has matured, and beyond Cisplatin, many other metal complexes have been explored for their anti-proliferative activity. Over the years, chemical creativity has shifted from the mere discovery of new active agents towards the elucidation of their mode of action (as difficult as that may be at times). More recently still, issues like targeted delivery of antiproliferative agents to cancer cells, activation of inorganic prodrugs by a variety of means including light activation, and very creative approaches for targeting malignant cells exclusively moved into the spotlight of modern medicinal inorganic chemistry. On yet a different note, the advent of nanoscience has also had an impact on medicinal inorganic chemistry and certainly holds promise.

The current themed issue of Dalton Transactions entitled “Metallodrugs – Activation, Targeting, and Delivery” seeks to explore these frontiers of the art in medicinal inorganic chemistry. With this issue, we seek to provide a timely overview of current developments in those focal points of inorganic drug development. Two perspectives have been included in this issue summarizing the most up-to-date progress of Pt(IV) prodrugs (DOI: 10.1039/c6dt01414c) and multifunctional Pt(II) complexes (DOI: 10.1039/c6dt01738j). Light sensitive or pH responsive groups can be incorporated to potentiate the cytotoxic efficacy of the metal complexes. Cellular or sub-cellular targeting can be achieved by introducing homing moieties or peptide vectors; biodegradable polymers, supramolecular assemblies and nano-platforms provide elegant examples for selective encapsulation and delivery of metallodrugs. To round off the topic, and also to celebrate the 50th birthday of “Cisplatin”, we have included a contribution by James Hoeschele who describes the life and discoveries of Prof. Rosenberg (DOI: 10.1039/c6dt02152b).

As guest editors, we are grateful to the researchers from all over the world who contributed to this themed issue. We are also grateful to the RSC team in the Dalton Transactions Editorial Office who helped to keep everyone, including ourselves, on track to ensure timely production of this themed issue. As guest editors, we had the privilege to browse through the table of contents entries and the individual articles before everyone else. We are thrilled by the incredible development that has taken place in the last fifty years, and more specifically by the momentum that the field has gained in the last ten years or so through embracing modern cell biology methods in cancer research. This development is well documented in this themed issue, and along with all authors and readers we are excited to see the field develop further.

Nils Metzler-Nolte and Zijian Guo

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