ARIANNE MER F.

PAAS GRADE 11 - MERCURY

A Journal Critique

Journal Article Title: Metal-based drugs that break the rules

Author/s: Claire Allardyce and Paul Dyson

The journal article titled “Metal-based drugs that break the rules” was published by Dyson and Allardyce
on the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2016. The journal described the impact of platinum compounds,
especially cisplatin, on the treatment of cancer and how it paved the way for the study of other metal-based
anticancer drugs. The central problem presented in the study was that not all compounds are compatible
with platinum-derived concepts with respect to the compound’s design.
The title of the journal article is very vague and does not capture the main idea clearly. It has a tendency
to cause confusion towards the readers.
The abstract of the journal was written briefly and concisely, describing the main idea of the article in only
a few sentences. Still, the information contained in the abstract was a bit unclear and doesn’t explain the
topic well enough. It has a tendency to leave the readers hanging because it majorly focuses on the purpose
of the study and does not expound on the results.
In the introduction, the authors began by describing Rosenberg’s study in 1967 which related to the ability
of cisplatin to inhibit cell replication and eventually its revolutionary use in various cancer treatments.
Because of this, platinum drugs are being used in 50-70% of cancer treatment regimens today. However,
they realized that not all cisplatin derivatives can be used as anti-cancer because some types of cancer are
resistant or can acquire resistance to cisplatin during treatment. Overall, the introduction was written well
as it gave a useful and comprehensive background on platinum-based drugs.
After the introduction, it can be noticed that the article does not follow the format of a typical journal-style
scientific paper. Usually, the methods and results will follow but in this case, the journal presented three
sub-topics instead which illustrated drug design concepts, the biochemistry of cancer cells, and
photodynamic therapy.
The first sub-section expounded on deeper concepts about coordinate complexes. Several rules were
proposed regarding the mechanism of successful platinum complexes and it was found that the compounds
that break these rules actually have unique anticancer properties. The authors then enumerated various
“rule-breaking” compounds and their contribution to anticancer treatment such as the compound CT-3610
which has completed phase II of clinical trials for melanoma, pancreatic and ovarian cancer and CT-47518
which have improved stability profiles in human plasma.
In the second sub-section, the biochemistry of cancer cells was discussed and how their differences can
help achieve selective activation. This part explains information that is important in understanding metal
complexes’s roles in inhibiting tumour growth.
In the third sub-section, the authors expanded on photosensitizers administered during photodynamic
therapy.
These three sub-sections provided important information and laid out the main concepts. However, that
information cannot be understood easily since the authors used complex terms that are difficult to
comprehend which makes these parts fairly confusing.
The final part of the article, the Outlook, gave an inclusive summary about the entire paper in a simple
manner. Even if the reader does not read the article all the way through, this part will give them a detailed
synopsis of the topic. The outlook was written comprehensively and successfully draws noteworthy
conclusions from the concepts presented in prior sections.
In general, the journal article gave significant insights on the endless potentials of metal-based drugs and
covered the underlying risks of using metal-based drugs. The first few paragraphs of the journal were
straightforward but as you go on, it gets more and more complicated because of the use of complex
vocabulary. Readers who are not cancer and chemistry experts will not be engaged in reading the article.
Nevertheless, the journal, when taken as a whole, is interesting, relevant and provides preliminary data for
the use of metal complexes in cancer treatment that can be used in future studies.