Abstract

Metals have been used in Medicine since Antiquity. Today several metal-based compounds are administered in the clinics for disease treatment and diagnosis.

Starting with historical aspects of the uses of metals in therapeutics, I will discuss some strategies from Inorganic Chemistry that may be employed today in the discovery and development of new pharmaceuticals. Opportunities exist to exploit the unique properties of metal complexes, such as accessibility of multiple oxidation states, overall charge and different geometries, for the development of metallodrugs. These properties can however become a disadvantage if not controlled. Hence, control of metal reactivity and toxicity is an important challenge in Medicinal Inorganic Chemistry.

In this context, I intend to highlight new approaches to the design of innovative and selective metal-based drug candidates, and some examples will be given of the design of targeting ligands to address specific diseases.

I will also discuss some examples of anticancer, antimicrobial and anti-parasitical metallodrugs and their modes of action, hoping to provide an overview of the remarkable recent progress in the expanding field of Medicinal Inorganic Chemistry.