A collaborative work between the groups of Gilles Gasser (Chimie ParisTech, PSL University, CNRS, Institute of Chemistry for Life and Health Sciences), Hui Chao (Sun Yat-sen University, China) and Olivier Blacque (University of Zurich, Switzerland) was recently published in the prestigious journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition!

Multiple therapeutic strategies have evolved worldwide to win the battle against cancer. One such promising approach is photodynamic therapy (PDT), where benign photosensitizers are selectively activated by low energy photons at the tumor sites to generate cytotoxic species leading to cell death. Though simplistic in concept, the challenges for the development of photosensitizers are many-fold. The commonly used photosensitizers scaffold based on the tetrapyrrolic structure suffers from poor aqueous solubility, photo-instability, aggregation and slow clearance from the body causing hepatotoxicity and photosensitivity in patients. All these limitations combined poses the imminent need to develop efficient photosensitizers that are commercially viable, easy to synthesize, can be activated with low energy light for deeper tissue penetration, have good aqueous solubility and excellent photophysical and cytotoxic properties. In their study, a PhD student Johannes Karges and a post-doc Dr. Uttara Basu demonstrated that a new class of metal complexes based on cheap and biocompatible starting materials could be used as photosensitizers for PDT. Encapsulation in a polymer matrix allow overcoming the problems of solubility of the compounds. Overall, these results are extremely promising and are a strong encouragement for testing such compounds in mice in the near future.

Abstract here

Students of Chemistry ParisTech find the integration of the publication from the library’s computers, via the editor Wiley. Les étudiants de Chimie ParisTech peuvent retrouver l’intégralité de cet article depuis les ordinateurs de la bibliothèque.

Gilles Gasser, already an ERC Consolidator Scholar, is also a recipient of the Churchill College Scholarship from the University of Cambrige (UK). In 2020, he will spend five months in the group of Prof. Gonçalo Bernardes with whom he is already working on the formation of bioconjugates for medicinal purposes.