Seminar Pr Patrick Gamez

Pr Patrick GAMEZ

University of Barcelona, Espagne
nanoBIC
www.nanobic.eu
patrick.gamez@ub.edut

Ruthenium(II) and osmium(II) complexes to kill cancer cells

Following the discovery of the remarkable chemotherapeutic properties of cisplatin in the 1960s, several platinum drugs have been developed and are currently used clinically. However, severe side effects (for instance due to the lack of selectivity) and the frequent appearance of tumoral resistance are some major drawbacks in their utilization. Therefore, new metal-based compounds and therapeutic strategies are continuously developed with the objective to obtain more selective and efficient anticancer agents.

Since 5 years, in our group, we are designing Ru(II)- and Os(II)-arene complexes with 1-pyrenylphosphane ligands exhibiting interesting chemical and cytotoxic properties. Moreover, we recently started to work on photoactivatable, Ru(II)-based, coordination compounds for a potential use as anticancer agents. Indeed, photodynamic therapy (PDT) and photoactivated phototherapy (PACT) are two approaches that are gaining a lot of interest due to the spatiotemporal controllability of light irradiation, allowing the selective eradication of cancer cells.

In this presentation, recent results obtained at nanoBIC in these two fields of anticancer drug design will be described.