Rethinking Platinum Anticancer Drug Design: Towards Targeted and Immuno-chemotherapeutic Approaches

Daniel Wong was born in Singapore and graduated with honors from the National University of Singapore (NUS) in 2011. Encouraged by a positive undergraduate research experience, he then continued to complete his doctoral studies in NUS in 2015 under the guidance of Prof. Ang Wee Han, working mainly on the immuno-modulating effects of platinum agents for cancer therapy. In 2015, he joined Nanyang Technological University as a Research Fellow under the supervision of Prof. Par Nordlund, a renowned structural biologist. There, he employed structure-based drug design techniques against molecular targets in both immuno-oncology and malaria. At the same time, he is also experimenting with new progressive methodologies for simultaneous target and ligand discovery. Apart from research, Daniel likes mentoring students because of their infectious enthusiasm and he believes that the future rests upon them. Daniel is a recipient of the Wang Gungwu Medal (2016) for best PhD thesis in the Natural Sciences in NUS and the Springer Thesis Prize (2017).

Introduction- Cisplatin- Now and Future.- Harnessing Chemoselective Imine Ligation for Tethering Bioactive Molecules to Platinum (IV) Prodrugs.- Probing the Platinum(IV) Prodrug Hypothesis - Are Platinum(IV) Complexes Really Prodrugs of Cisplatin?.- Induction of Targeted Necrosis with HER2-Targeted Platinum(IV) Anticancer Prodrugs.- Immuno-Chemotherapeutic Platinum(IV) Prodrugs of Cisplatin as Multimodal Anticancer Agents.- Induction of Immunogenic Cell Death by Chemotherapeutic Platinum Complexes.- Concluding Remarks.