Non-essential Metals in Chemical Biology

Abstract

Metal ions and compounds are essential to life and many people routinely take them as food supplements in the form of vitamin and mineral pills. Most non-essential metals are considered to be toxic, nevertheless, many are widely used in imaging, diagnostics and medicine. This short review provides an overview from selected examples of the on-going research within my laboratory that uses metal compounds to either understand biological processes or that exhibit therapeutic properties overcoming the limitations of existing chemotherapies.

Keywords

• Bioinorganic chemistry
• Bioorganometallic chemistry
• Enzyme inhibition
• Protein crystallography