A platinum butterfly effect: small changes turn an anticancer drug into a non-toxic metalloantibiotic with in vivo efficacy
Çağrı Özsan, Ann-Britt Schäfer, Abdul Akhir, Obed Akwasi Aning, Sofia Fulgencio, Rahul Maitra, Rupa Rani, Deepanshi Saxena, Fredrik Westerlund, Sidharth Chopra, Michaela Wenzel, Angelo Frei · 2026
Read A platinum butterfly effect: small changes turn an anticancer drug into a non-toxic metalloantibiotic with in vivo efficacy by Çağrı Özsan, Ann-Britt Schäfer, Abdul Akhir, Obed Akwasi Aning, Sofia Fulgencio, Rahul Maitra, Rupa Rani, Deepanshi Saxena, Fredrik Westerlund, Sidharth Chopra, Michaela Wenzel, Angelo Frei (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13183915.txt.
Description
Çağrı Özsan and co-authors show small changes turn a platinum anticancer scaffold into a non-toxic antibacterial, exploring metal-based antibiotics against critical pathogens. Metal compounds hit bacteria at high rates in screening, and they show no extra toxicity over organic drugs. The team tuned a platinum family for Gram-positive action.
The simplest scaffold proved the best antibacterial of the set. The lead compound damages bacterial DNA directly, and strand breaks and genome fragmentation were observed. DNA staining dropped and repair responses switched on. Radical scavengers blunted the compound's activity, hinting at a multi-pronged killing mechanism. No resistance developed under the reported tests.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Çağrı Özsan, Ann-Britt Schäfer, Abdul Akhir, Obed Akwasi Aning, Sofia Fulgencio, Rahul Maitra, Rupa Rani, Deepanshi Saxena, Fredrik Westerlund, Sidharth Chopra, Michaela Wenzel, Angelo Frei |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 67 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |