Electronic Structure of Osmium Complexes as Analogues of Ruthenium Anticancer Drugs

The use of Os and Ru complexes is part of a new focus on the use of metals in medicine due to their effectiveness as anti-cancer agents. Although some Ru complexes have already reached clinical trials, e.g., KP1019 (indH2[trans-RuCl4(indH)2]; ind = indazole), developed by one of the co-authors of this proposal (Arion), investigations of analogous Os complexes are still in development but have shown great promise as (pro)-drugs. In this context, we carried out 187Os nuclear resonance scattering in a series of nine Os coordination complexes to obtain detailed information on the local coordination (the so-called quadrupole splitting) and the vibrational properties (summarized in the density of vibrational states of Os). An important issue, which still needs to be addressed, is to obtain information on the Os oxidation state (obtained from the so-called isomer shift).