Conférence Dr Małgorzata Brindell

Dr Małgorzata Brindell,  Professeure à Jagiellonian University (Pologne), donnera une conférence intitulée « Anticancer activity of ruthenium polypyridyl complexes
– combined cytotoxic and anticancer properties« .

Małgorzata Brindell Abstract

In recent years, ruthenium complexes with polypyridyl ligands have become a very popular
group of compounds tested as potential anticancer agents. A huge database of such compounds has
been created, comprising in vitro studies focused mainly on their cytotoxic activity, uptake, and
localization as well as the cellular death mechanism. Therefore, all efforts were made to check their
effectiveness against primary tumors. However, the main cause of death in cancer patients is the
development of secondary tumors and so far there are no successful treatment protocols. The main
goal of our studies was to draw the attention of scientists to the great potential of Ru polypyridyl
complexes not only as cytotoxic agents but also compounds that can control the formation and the
development of metastases. Such properties were very rarely checked, and on the basis of our
research and a few cases found in the literature we postulate that many of the compounds tested so
far for their cytotoxic activity may also be active as antimetastatic agents. Therefore, this issue
deserves reinvestigation.
Ineffective clinical trials in the testing of antimetastatic drugs showed the need to develop
compounds that simultaneously target several steps of the metastatic cascade. We believe that the
developed Ru complexes can successfully fill this niche and that our findings might be relevant for
other researchers working on designing new compounds that are also active as inhibitors of
metastasis. Our studies have demonstrated that by selecting appropriate substituents in polypyridyl
ligands, the activity of the Ru complexes can be tuned towards their combined cytotoxic and
antimetastatic activity against cancer cells.
In this presentation, the way we are testing Ru compounds for their potential antimetastatic
activity will be shown, as well as the most important finding (summarized in figure below) will be briefly
discussed.
We anticipate that our findings will draw the attention of scientists to the underrated
properties of polypyridyl Ru(II) complexes and toward their application as antimetastatic agents.