From potential contamination of individuals with radioactive fission products after a nuclear accident to the therapeutic use of radio-isotopes for cancer diagnostics and treatment, the biological chemistry of actinides has become increasingly relevant to a number of applied problems. Understanding the fundamental bonding interactions of selective <i>f</i>-element assemblies presents a rich set of scientific challenges and is critical to the characterization of transuranic actinide coordination chemistry in environmentally and biologically relevant species and to the development of new therapeutic agents. Our approach to these challenges uses a combination of biochemical and spectroscopic studies on both in vitro and in vivo systems to characterize the selective binding of actinide ions by natural and biomimetic hard oxygen-donor architectures and the subsequent macromolecular recognition of the resulting assemblies. Following the recent development of an investigational new drug for radionuclide decorporation, new synthetic ligands linking specific catecholamide-like binding units to polyamine and polymeric peptoid scaffolds have recently opened new directions for these studies and will be discussed.

Actinide coordination with bio-inspired ligands: A bridge between fundamental f-element chemistry and new therapeutic drug development

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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