LAUSR

Diverse metal-organic complexes (MOCs), such as rectangles, triangles, hexagons, prisms and cages, can be formed by coordination between metal ions (Pt, Pd, Ru, Rh, Ir, Zn, Co and Cd) and organic ligands, providing applications as alternatives to conventional biomedical materials for therapeutic, sensing and imaging purposes. As anticancer drugs, MOCs have been investigated in the treatment of malignant tumors in the lung, cervical, breast, colon, liver, prostate, ovarian, brain, stomach, bone, skin, mouth, thyroid, and other malignancies. As drug carriers, MOCs with one, two and three cavities have been prepared for the loading and release of different drugs. In addition, MOCs can target proteins by the shape effect, and recognize sugars and DNA by electro-static interactions, as well as estradiol by host-guest interactions, etc. This perspective mainly covers achievements in the biomedical application of MOCs. We aim to identify some key trends in the reported MOC structures in relation to their biomedical activity and potential applica-tions.