Dalton
Transactions
EDITORIAL
Themed Issue on “Metallodrugs: Activation,
Cite this: Dalton Trans., 2016, 45,
Targeting, and Delivery”
12965
Nils Metzler-Noltea and Zijian Guob
DOI: 10.1039/c6dt90135b
www.rsc.org/dalton
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In 1965, the seminal paper by Barnett
Rosenberg appeared in Nature, describ-
ing 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 argu-
ably given birth to the field of medicinal
inorganic chemistry. Now, just over
50 years after Rosenberg’s seminal dis-
covery, 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 in-
organic prodrugs by a variety of means
including light activation, and very crea-
tive approaches for targeting malignant
cells exclusively moved into the spotlight
of modern medicinal inorganic chem-
istry. On yet a different note, the advent
a
Inorganic Chemistry I – Bioinorganic Chemistry,
Faculty of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Ruhr University
Bochum, Universitätsstrasse 150, 44797 Bochum,
Germany. E-mail: nils.metzler-nolte@rub.de
b
State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry,
School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering,
Nanjing University, 210093 Nanjing, China.
E-mail: zguo@nju.edu.cn
This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2016
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 incorpor-
ated 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, supra-
molecular assemblies and nano-plat-
forms provide elegant examples for
selective encapsulation and delivery of
metallodrugs. To round off the topic,
and also to celebrate the 50th birthday
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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 con-
tents 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
Dalton Trans., 2016, 45, 12965 | 12965