EN
Traditional drug design has been effective in the
development of therapies for a variety of disease states but
there is a need for new approaches that will tackle new
challenges and complement current paradigms. The use
of metals in medicine has resulted in several successes
and allows for the introduction of properties that cannot
be achieved by use of organic compounds alone, but
also introduces new challenges that can be addressed
by a careful understanding of the principles of inorganic
chemistry. Toward this end, the unique structural and
coordination chemistry, as well as the reactivity of metals,
has been used to design novel classes of therapeutic
and diagnostic agents. This review briefly summarizes
progress in the field of therapeutics, from the earliest
use of metals to more recent efforts to design catalytic
metallodrugs that promote the irreversible inactivation of
therapeutically relevant targets.