Dr Charlotte Willans, who leads the research, describes how the project grew out of the study of the organic materials surrounding metal compounds, specifically silver. This led to the collaboration with Dr Roger Phillips at the Institute of Cancer Therapeutics in the University of Bradford. At Leeds they prepared the compounds for testing at Bradford, where the silver-based chemicals were exposed to breast and colon cancer cells.
They are working with the ligand (the molecule surrounding the central metal ion) known as N-heterocyclic carbene. So far they have found that if the ligand is attached to the metal centre of the molecule through two or more sites, it kills the cancer cell more effectively than when it is attached through just one site. More attachments make the molecules more stable, perhaps because of the slow release of the metal. Studying these molecular processes should tell us how silver compounds kill bacteria and cancer cells, and how silver is broken down in the body. Unlike silver, the use of platinum in cancer treatment has been well studied and tested in drugs like cisplatin. In the next 12 months they will continue to study the silver compounds interaction with DNA and cell protein in both diseased and healthy cells..
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