Platinum-based drugs are widely used in clinic for the therapy of solid tumors and represent the cornerstone for the treatment of certain types of cancers including testicular, ovarian, lung and colorectal carcinomas. Despite the therapeutic benefit of platinum-based treatment regiments, the efficacy of platinum drugs is limited by their toxicity and intrinsic or acquired resistances. Therefore, the search for new platinum drugs with higher efficacy and lower toxicity is of significant importance.
Through the tight collaboration between LOU Liguang’s group at Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica and LIU Weiping’s group at Kunming Institute of Precious Metals, a series of platinum analogues have been designed, synthesized and evaluated for their biological activity. Some analogues including oxaliplatin analogues, heptaplatin analogues and dimeric platinum were identified with the potential for further development. These compounds have been granted China’s Invention Patents and part of the work has recently been published in the journal of Inorganic Chemistry（Inorganic Chemistry 2010；49:5792-5794 and epub ahead of print 2011, doi.org/10.1021/ic200436u). This work was supported by the National New Drug Development Program of China and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.