Medicinal Inorganic Chemistry

This book, a compilation by experts in the field, is designed to provide an introduction to the area of medicinal inorganic chemistry and to summarize current, state-of-the-art developments in the field. Medicinal inorganic chemistry represents a key thrust area in medicine and biological inorganic chemistry. It is one of great current excitement and achievement. The field of metals in medicine represents an approximate $3 billion dollar a year industry, with successes in the area of Tc- and Gd-based imaging agents and Pt-based cancer therapeutics being major contributors to this bottom line. It has become increasingly apparent, however, that metal-based pharmaceuticals can play a prominent role in areas outside of imaging and oncology, including in those associated with the diagnosis and treatment of metabolism- and genetic disorders, cardiovascular disease, gene therapy, inflammation, reperfusion injury, stroke, diabetes, ALS, malaria, and neurological disease to name but a few. A objective of this book, therefore, is to highlight these opportunities for future advances and to foster further interactions between those working in the metal-based drug development, including imaging agents, and those engaged in the more classic pharmaceutical industries.

Professor Jonathan L. Sessler obtained a Ph.D. Stanford University in 1982 under the aegis of Prof. J. P. Collman). After postdoctoral work with Profs. Jean-Marie Lehn and Iwao Tabushi, he accepted a faculty position at the University of Texas at Austin, where is currently the Roland K. Pettit Professor of Chemistry. Dr. Sessler is a co-founder (with Dr. Richard A. Miller) of Pharmacyclics, Inc., a publicly traded company dedicated to developing biomedical applications of expanded porphyrins.

Thomas McMurry has been part of the scientific management team at EPIX Pharmaceuticals since it initiated operations in 1993 and is currently Vice President, Research. Prior to joining EPIX, he was a Senior Staff Fellow in Radiation Oncology at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, and a postdoctoral associate at the University of California, Berkeley. Tom holds a M.S. and Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Michigan and is a graduate of the Pennsylvania State University.

Stephen J. Lippard is the Arthur Amos Noyes Professor and Head of the Chemistry Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A member of the National Academy of Sciences and its Institute of Medicine, his laboratory works at the interface of inorganic chemistry and biology. Included are studies of platinum anticancer drugs, non-heme diiron centers, and probes to investigate neurochemical signaling by zinc and nitric oxide. He is co-author with Jeremy M. Berg of the book "Principles of Bioinorganic Chemistry.

Susan R. Doctrow, Ph.D., is Vice President, Research at Eukarion, Inc., has been developing synthetic SOD/catalase mimetics as potential treatments for a broad range of diseases including neurodegenerative disorders. Previously, she was employed at Alkermes, Inc. and as Instructor in Biochemistry (Department of Surgery) at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Doctrow has a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Brandeis University and conducted postdoctoral research at Children's Hospital, Boston.