Department of Chemistry, Graduate School of Science
I research Pb-212 complexes with the aim of developing cancer therapeutics. Cancer drugs using Pb-212 are expected to provide low side effects and highly efficient cancer treatment due to the alpha rays emitted by Pb-212. In addition, since producing Pb-212 does not require large facilities, it is expected to be used as a therapeutic agent that can be produced domestically.
When a Pb-212 drug is administered to patients, it is necessary for the drug to retain Pb-212 strongly to prevent Pb-212 from being released from the drug in the body. In current nuclear medicine, Pb-212 is retained in the drug as a Pb complex by a chelator ligand. However, Pb complexes are known to form characteristic structures, and there has been no detailed study of how these structures affect the stability of drugs.
Therefore, I research the design and development of new structurally stable chelator ligands by clarifying how the characteristic structures of lead complexes are formed, with the goal of applying them to Pb-212-based cancer drugs.