Last week, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Guo Zijian came to Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech). He gave the 225^th lecture in the SUSTech lecture series, in which he spoke about “Metal Chemical Biology.”

Professor Guo Zijian currently works at the State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry at Nanjing University, and is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He has long been engaged in the research of chemical biology of metal ions and metal drugs. Guo Zijian has made significant progress in our understanding of metal-biomolecule interactions, platinum anti-tumor drug design and transportation.

In his lecture, Professor Guo Zijian focused on the design, in-vitro and in-vivo imaging processes of the life zinc ion probe. He also discussed the design of the new platinum anti-tumor complex, its mechanism of action and its research progress in targeted transport.

Professor Guo Zijian emphasized the important role metal ions play in life signal transmission, introducing the correlation between metal ion signal species and various diseases. He used zinc ions as an example, as zinc ions have attracted much attention due to their vital roles in neural signaling, transduction and gene transcription. There have also been complementary side-effects with other signaling molecules.

Professor Guo Zijian spoke about the important role played by metal drugs in diagnosing and treating diseases. He combined the characteristics of metal ions themselves with the performance of metal drugs in clinical medicine. Professor Guo Zijian said that metal anti-tumor drugs are widely used in clinical medicine, but their drug resistance and other side-effects have currently affected the further application of such drugs.