Preparing (Metalla)carboranes for Nanomedicine.

Preparing (Metalla)carboranes for Nanomedicine. ChemMedChem. 2021 Jan 28;: Authors: Gozzi M, Schwarze B, Hey-Hawkins E Abstract "There's plenty of room at the bottom" (Richard Feynman, 1959): an invitation for (metalla)carboranes to enter the (new) field of nanomedicine. Since two decades, the number of publications on boron cluster compounds designed for potential applications in medicine is constantly increasing. Hundreds of compounds have been screened in vitro or in vivo for a variety of biological activities (chemotherapeutics, radiotherapeutics, antiviral, etc.), and some have shown rather promising potential for further development. However, until today, no boron cluster compounds have made it to the clinics, and clinical trials have been very sparse. This review introduces a new perspective in the field of medicinal boron chemistry, namely that boron-based drugs should be regarded as nanomedicine platforms, due to their peculiar self-assembly behaviour in aqueous solutions, and treated as such. Examples for boron-based 12- and 11-vertex clusters and appropriate comparative studies from medicinal (in)organic chemistry and nanomedicine, highlighting similarities, differences and gaps in physico-chemical and biological characterisation methods, are provided to encourage medicinal boron chemists to fill the gaps between chemical lab and real applications in living systems by employing bioanalytical and biophysical methods for cha...
Source: ChemMedChem - Category: Chemistry Authors: Tags: ChemMedChem Source Type: research