Metal-carbon bonds for biologists

Bioorganometallics: biomolecules, labelling, medicine      

Gerard Jaouen (ed)   

Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH  2006 | 480pp | ?100.00 (HB) | ISBN 352730990X   

Reviewed by John Reglinski

This book contains a series of well-written articles detailing the hard-won success of the many pioneers who have worked at the fertile interfaces between organometallic chemistry and biology. 

The reviews themselves are all written by highly respected scientists and, while many are comprehensive in nature, a small number (eg ruthenium anticancer compounds and supramolecular host recognition) are very specialised. 

In essence the book is aimed at biochemists and chemists. The former will find many of the articles in the core of the text, detailing the use of organometallics as bio-probes, to be highly informative, providing a useful historical background and a description of the current synergy between organometallic chemistry and bioscience. 

The perspective for the chemist is not so overwhelming. For example, the text holds to a rather outmoded view of organometallic chemistry as a subject with its critical need for a formal metal-carbon bond rather than the more lax boundaries being currently set by the specialist journals. 

Apart from the brief but very succinct chapters on metalloenzymes and modelling, the text places a heavy emphasis on metallocene and carbonyl chemistry. Hence, although the book is titled Bioorgano-metallics, this reviewer would suggest that the subtitle Biomolecules, labelling, medicine is a much better guide to the overall content of the text.