Bioinorganic Chemistry: Cellular Systems and Synthetic Models includes chapters describing cutting-edge work by renowned researchers in the field that fall within two main areas of current bioinorganic chemistry: (1) the study of cellular systems and processes that occur inside cells that are impacted by inorganic elements, e.g., biosynthetic pathways leading to the production of vital metal-containing enzymes and proteins including iron-sulfur clusters, hemes, and cytochrome c oxidase; metal homeostasis (Zn2+ in E. coli); and new strategies to examine DNA targeting by metal-based drugs using, as an example, the clinically-employed bleomycin class of antitumor agents, and (2) sophisticated new inorganic model systems, many of which escape the traditional approach of trying to use structural mimics of the native systems to produce functional mimics and instead use a more conceptual approach to the use of bioinorganic models to understand the native system or to develop useful synthetic molecules. In the former area, unlike most traditional efforts in bioinorganic chemistry that have been devoted to studies of the structures and functions of metal centers located within individual metal-containing proteins, the topics described in this volume seek to describe whole systems of interaction between multiple interacting biomolecules that are impacted by inorganic species. In the latter area, along with chapters devoted to more traditional ligand systems and inorganic reactivities, peptide- and protein-like ligand systems are emphasized creating agents that: lead to novel structures and morphologies, de novo designed systems that model biological Hg binding, and unique DNA-targeted agents that mimic the activities of nucleic acid-targeted natural products and proteins. Together, these chapters provide examples of the exciting current work in two important areas in the exciting field of bioinorganic chemistry.
