Centuries of folk-medicines lie at the root of small molecule drug design in the pharmaceutical industry today. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of natural, metal-based molecular scaffolds paving the road to new metallotherapeutics. Despite these challenges, metal-containing therapeutics have a rich empirical history that is exemplified by Paul Erhlich's arsphenamine agent Sarvarsan, which served as an anti-syphilitic for 30 years prior to the discovery of Penicillin. Today, Metals in Medicine is a rapidly developing field that is expanding beyond the classic """"""""success stories"""""""" of cisplatin in oncology, Gd-MRI contrast or Cardiolyte radiopharmaceutical imaging agents. These creative and medicinally important advances require multidisciplinary connectivity to realize the """"""""bench-to-bedside"""""""" results desired by researchers and patients alike. To this end, funds are requested to support conference fees and travel for participants in the fourth GRC conference on Metals in Medicine, which will be held at Proctor Academy, June 29-July 4, 2008. The meeting will feature both current clinical practices and discovery-level research in six health-related areas: Oncology, Diagnostics/Imaging, Infectious and Neurodegenerative Diseases, Cardiovascular Malady, Metabolic Disorders and Aging. The underlying theme of the conference will focus on developing an understanding of the big picture opportunities and necessary approaches required to move basic scientists closer to real results in the clinic. In this sense, the conference will appeal to researchers from a wide range of backgrounds, facilitating much needed collaborations and partnerships among inorganic chemists, biologists, physicians, and industry, not only in the US but internationally. In order to ensure a broad range of participants it is important that cost not be a limiting factor in the attendance of invited speakers, discussion chairs, and especially younger and minority attendees. New investigators will be solicited to attend this conference, where at least three short talks by assistant professors, postdocs, or senior graduate students will be selected from the poster abstracts. The requested support will allow the organizers to cover the cost of conference fees for these younger participants, as well as guaranteeing the flexibility to develop a program with breadth and depth by attracting speakers at the forefront of the field. A conference where interdisciplinary ideas in medicinal inorganic chemistry from basic science, to preclinical development, to treating real patients can be realized and fostered in a truly unique context, provides a crucial venue for developing and nurturing ideas that will shape the field for future discoveries. Project Narrative/Relevance Metals in Medicine is a rapidly developing field that is expanding beyond the classic """"""""success stories"""""""" of cisplatin in oncology, Gd-MRI contrast or Cardiolyte radiopharmaceutical imaging agents. These creative and medicinally important advances require multidisciplinary connectivity to realize the """"""""bench- to-bedside"""""""" results desired by researchers and patients alike. To this end, funds are requested to support conference fees and travel for participants in the fourth GRC conference on Metals in Medicine, which will be held at Proctor Academy, June 29-July 4, 2008. The meeting will feature both current clinical practices and discovery-level research in six health-related areas: Oncology, Diagnostics/Imaging, Infectious and Neurodegenerative Diseases, Cardiovascular Malady, Metabolic Disorders and Aging. ? ? ?
