Nicholas P Farrell – författare

Metal-based drugs are a commercially important sector of the pharmaceutical business, yet most bioinorganic textbooks lack the space to cover comprehensively the subject of metals in medicine. Uses of Inorganic Chemistry in Medicine approaches an understanding of the topic in a didactic and systematic manner. The field of inorganic chemistry in medicine may usefully be divided into two main categories - drugs which target metal ions in some form, whether free or protein-bound, and secondly, metal-based drugs where the central metal ion is usually the key feature of the mechanism of action. This latter category can further be subdivided into pharmacodynamic and chemotherapeutic applications, as well as those of imaging. The book summarises the chemical and biological studies on clinically used agents of lithium, gold and platinum, as well as highlighting the research on prospective new drugs, including those based on vanadium and manganese. The coverage allows a clear distinction between pharmacodynamic and therapeutic properties of metal-based drugs and focuses not only on those clinical agents in current use, but also on new drugs and uses. This book serves to fill an important niche, bridging bioinorganic and medicinal chemistry and will undoubtedly be of use to senior undergraduates and postgraduates, as well as being an invaluable asset for teachers and researchers in the discipline.

Leading international experts comprehensively review all aspects of platinum anticancer drugs and their current use in treatment, as well as examining their future therapeutic prospects. Writing from a variety of disciplines, these authorities discuss the chemistry of cisplatin in aqueous solution, the molecular interaction of platinum drugs with DNA, and such exciting new areas as DNA mismatch repair and replicative bypass, apoptosis, and the transport of platinum drugs into tumor cells. The emergent platinum drugs of the future - orally active agents, the sterically hindered ZD0473, and the polynuclear charged platinum BBR3464 - are also fully considered. Timely and interdisciplinary, Platinum-Based Drugs in Cancer Therapy offers cancer therapeutics specialists an illuminating survey of every aspect of platinum drugs from mechanisms of action to toxicology, tumor resistance, and new analogs.