Ruthenium Catalysis in Biological Habitats

Abstract

Recent years have witnessed a considerable progress in research aimed at merging transition metal catalysis with chemical and cell biology. Therefore, a crescent number of metal-catalyzed transformations have been shown compatible with biological media and even with living settings. Of the different transition metals used to build these biocompatible catalysts, ruthenium has demonstrated to be particularly powerful, in part because the resulting complexes exhibit a very good balance between reactivity and biological stability. Indeed, ruthenium complexes have demonstrated utility to promote a great variety of reactions in biologically relevant contexts, from deprotection and redox processes to cycloadditions or photocatalytic transformations. Many of these reactions may enable the development of new type of biological tools and pharmacological strategies.