Analytical Chemistry of Metal Anticancer Drugs

Cancer is still one of the major causes of death both in Austria and worldwide - in Austria the passing over of ca. 20.000 people per year is ascribed to malignant tumoral diseases. Though the demographic development would be supporting an increasing proportion of cancer-caused deaths, the number of successful treatments was improved by using new, more efficient drugs to ca. 50%. Among the most important chemotherapeutics are the on-the-noble- metal-platinum-based coordination compounds cisplatin, carboplatin and oxaliplatin which are nowadays part of different therapy schemes. Unfortunately, the treatment of patients with those compounds is accompanied by enormous disadvantages like side effects, development of resistance or limited therapeutic potential against wide- spread tumors. Within the project "Analytical Chemistry of Metal Anticancer Drugs: Investigations into Stability, Kinetics, Binding Behavior, and Mode of Action by Capillary Electrophoresis" studies were performed in order to get further insight into the mode of action of complexes with regard of an eventual application as anticancer drug. Therefore investigations concerning the stability of newly developed compounds and their binding to biomolecules were in the focus of interest The studies on the ruthenium compound KP1019, for which the clinical phase trials phase I were finished during the project duration, should be highlighted. On the one hand hydrolysis was studied in terms of kinetics and characterization of primary hydrolysis products; on the other hand many experiments with biomolecules were conducted. All these research activities delivered important contributions for the further development of the anticancer drug.