Professor Peter J. Sadler, University of Warwick, UK, will present the Department of Chemistry seminar, with a talk entitled, "From Organometallic and Photoactivatable Anticancer Complexes to In-cell Catalysis and Single Metal Atom Chemistry". 

Platinum complexes are the most widely used anticancer drugs. We are investigating the design of precious metal anticancer agents that might be effective against a wider range of cancers, have less side effects, a different mechanism of action, and therefore be effective against platinum-resistant cancers.

Professor Sadler will describe their recent research on low-spin d⁶ complexes of ruthenium, osmium, iridium and platinum. The activation of these inert complexes in cells can be controlled by the choice of the ligands and by irradiation with light. Attack on DNA can be switched to perturbation of the redox balance in cancer cells. Organometallic transfer hydrogenation catalysts can induce both oxidative and reductive stress in cells. They are adopting a systems pharmacology approach to elucidating mechanisms of action using genomic, transcriptomic and proteomic screening.  Unexpectedly, their work on complexes encapsulated in polymer micelles for drug delivery has led to the observation of single metal atom dynamics.