COSMOS

The Waiting Time Paradox and Exponential Approximation.

Hybrid Metal-Semiconductor Nanostructures.

Novel Amino Acid-Based Bifunctional Chiral Phosphines.

Emerging New Properties at Oxide Interfaces.

Recent Advances in Bromination Reactions.

Visible-Infrared Metamaterial Goes Flexible.

Metal complexes have been used as medicinal compounds. Metals have advantageous features over organic compounds. Significant applications of metal complexes are in the field of nuclear medicine. Radiopharmaceuticals are drugs containing radioisotopes used for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes.

The generalized targeting strategy for molecular imaging probe consists of three essential parts: (i) reporter unit or payload, (ii) carrier, and (iii) targeting system. Medicinal radiopharmaceutical chemistry pays special consideration to radioisotopes, as a reporter unit for diagnostic application or as a payload for therapeutic application. Targeting is achieved by a few approaches but the most common is the bifunctional chelator approach. While designing a radiopharmaceutical, a range of issues needs to be considered including properties of metal radioisotopes, bifunctional chelators, linkers, and targeting molecules. Designing radiopharmaceuticals requires consideration of two key words: "compounds of biological interest" and "fit for intended use." The ultimate goal is the development of new diagnostic methods and treatment.

Diagnostic metal radiopharmaceuticals are used for SPECT and PET applications. Technetium chemistry constitutes a major portion of SPECT and gallium chemistry constitutes a major portion of PET. Therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals can be constructed by using alpha-, beta minus-, or Auger electron-emitting radiometals. Special uses of medicinal radiopharmaceuticals include internal radiation therapy, brachytherapy, immunoPET, radioimmunotherapy, and peptide receptor radionuclide imaging and therapy.

Technetium and Rhenium are the two lower elements in the manganese triad. Whereas rhenium is known as an important part of high resistance alloys, technetium is mostly known as a cumbersome product of nuclear fission. It is less known that its metastable isotope ^99mTc is of utmost importance in nuclear medicine diagnosis. The technical application of elemental rhenium is currently complemented by investigations of its isotope ¹⁸⁸Re, which could play a central role in the future for internal, targeted radiotherapy. This article will briefly describe the basic principles behind diagnostic methods with radionuclides for molecular imaging, review the ^99mTc-based radiopharmaceuticals currently in clinical routine and focus on the chemical challenges and current developments towards improved, radiolabeled compounds for diagnosis and therapy in nuclear medicine.

It is known that one strength of MRI is its excellent soft tissue discrimination. It naturally provides sufficient contrast between the structural differences of normal and pathological tissues, their spatial extent and progression. However, to further extend its applications and enhance even more contrast for clinical studies, various Gadolinium (Gd)-based contrast agents have been developed for different organs (brain strokes, cancer, cardio-MRI, etc). These Gd-based contrast agents are paramagnetic compounds that have strong T₁-effect for enhancing the contrast between tissue types. Gd-contrast can also enhance magnetic resonance angiography (CE-MRA) for studying stenosis and for measuring perfusion, vascular susceptibility, interstitial space, etc. Another class of contrast agents makes use of ferrite iron oxide nanoparticles (including Superparamagnetic Ion Oxide (SPIO) and Ultrasmall Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide (USPIO)). These nanoparticles have superior magnetic susceptibility effect and produce a drop in signal, namely in -weighted images, useful for the determination of lymph nodes metastases, angiogenesis and arteriosclerosis plaques.

The serendipitous discovery of the antitumor properties of cisplatin by Barnett Rosenberg some forty years ago brought about a paradigm shift in the field of medicinal chemistry and challenged conventional thinking regarding the role of potentially toxic heavy metals in drugs. Platinum(II)-based anticancer drugs have since become some of the most effective and widely-used drugs in a clinician's arsenal and have saved countless lives. However, they are limited by high toxicity, severe side-effects and the incidence of drug resistance. In recent years, attention has shifted to stable platinum(IV) complexes as anticancer prodrugs. By exploiting the unique chemical and structural attributes of their scaffolds, these platinum(IV) prodrugs offer new strategies of targeting and killing cancer cells. This review summarizes the development of anticancer platinum(IV) prodrugs to date and some of the exciting strategies that utilise the platinum(IV) construct as targeted chemotherapeutic agents against cancer.