Metallodrugs in Cancer Therapy: The Newest Candidates in the Field, 2nd Edition

Dear Colleagues,

Metal ions play key roles in a myriad of biological processes known to be essential to life. Living organisms have developed mechanisms to maintain cellular levels of metal ions, which are tightly regulated; excess or deficiency in these ions result in disease, including cancer disorders. The use of metals and their compounds as medicines has been known since ancient times, even though insight into their modes of action was merely empiric, and the distinction between a therapeutic or toxic dose was a major challenge. Metal compounds were long regarded with suspicion and undefined as humans’ ‘friends’ or ‘foes’; this was true until Rosenberg’s breakthrough on the properties of cisplatin more than sixty years ago, which consolidated the interest in metal compounds as useful potential therapeutics. Since then, three platinum complexes (cisplatin, oxaliplatin and carboplatin) have been approved for clinical use worldwide, and still stand out as the most often prescribed chemotherapeutics (applied in essentially every second therapeutic routine), being listed as ‘essential medicines’ by the World Health Organization despite the toxicity inherent to their use and multidrug resistance.

These benefits (remarkably high efficiency) and drawbacks (toxicity and resistance) ignited the interest in metallodrugs for chemotherapy. Today, this is a highly dynamic field of research that has spread to other metal-containing complexes as novel potential anticancer drugs. 

This Special Issue is intended to collect recent research/discoveries in the field of cancer prospective metallopharmaceuticals. This is an area in constant evolution, and we welcome submissions (research papers/focused reviews) on subjects including, but not limited to:

• Synthetic methods/characterization and biological activity of novel metal-based compounds;
• Structure–activity studies;
• Drug delivery for metal-based compounds;
• Metal complexes overcoming MDR (metallodrug resistance to treatment);
• Mode of action, uptake, cell targets and (cyto)toxicity;
• Metal complexes as theranostics;
• Biospeciation of metal ions and anti-cancer metal-based compounds.

Dr. Ana Isabel Tomaz
Dr. Andreia Marques Valente
Dr. Leonor Côrte-Real
Guest Editors

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