[PDF] Metallopharmaceuticals II: Diagnosis and Therapy Michael F. Tweedle, Krishan Kumar (auth.), Professor Michael J. Clarke, Professor Peter J. Sadler (eds.)

Inorganic compounds offer much scope for the design of novel and therapeutic agents. The widespread use of paramagnetic metal complexes as effective contrast agents for magentic resonsance imaging (e.g. Gd) demonstrates that the toxicity of metals can be finely controlled via the approriate choice of ligands. The succcessful targeting of radioisotopes again depends on ligand design and metal oxidation state. Bismuth and gold complexes have long been used in medicine but only recently have advances been made in understanding the molecular basis of their mechanism of action. New areas with clinical potential include the use of polyoxometallates and fullerenes as antiviral agents and vanadium complexes as insulin mimetics.