A book entitled »Ruthenium Complexes: Photochemical and Biomedical Applications« (ISBN: 978-3-527-33957-0) was recently published by Wiley-VCH (Weinheim). The book consists of 15 chapters (344 pages). The content of book is covering many interesting properties of this popular element and spans from coordination chemisty of ruthenium to photochemical and photophysical properties of its compounds. The book mainly covers the application of ruthenium complexes in medicine (anticancer and other potential ruthenium drugs; photodynamic therapy; binding to DNA; diagnostics; etc.). Few chapters are also dedicated to applications of ruthenium complexes in artifical photosynthesis, production of hydrogen and oxidation of water. One of the chapters (»Biological Activity of Ruthenium Complexes With Quinoline Antibacterial and Antimalarial Drugs«) was written by senior group members assist. prof. Jakob Kljun and prof. Iztok Turel.

More information about the book is available at the webpage of the Publisher.

During his one-year postdoc in our labs Božidar Čobeljić introduced Schiff base ligands to our research group. Fruitful cooperation with Belgrade group in last years results in several recent papers which focus on the systemic synthesis and studies of heterocyclic Schiff base ligands of Girard’s reagents and their 3d metal complexes. Further papers are in preparation.

1. Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry (IF 2016 = 3.348): Synthesis, characterization and crystal structures of two pentagonal-bipyramidal Fe(III) complexes with dihydrazone of 2,6-diacetylpyridine and Girard’s T reagent. Anticancer properties of various metal complexes of the same ligand.
2. Polyhedron (IF 2016 = 1.926): Synthesis, crystal structure, magnetic properties and DFT study of dinuclear Ni(II) complex with the condensation product of 2-quinolinecarboxaldehyde and Girard’s T reagent
3. Journal of Coordination Chemistry (IF 2016 = 1.795): Synthesis, crystal structures and antimicrobial activity of azido and isocyanato Zn(II) complexes with the condensation product of 2-quinolinecarboxaldehyde and Girard’s T reagent

Congratulations to Božidar for the great publications and a big ‘’thank you’’ to all other co-authors for all the hard work.

Within the bilateral Slovenian-Serbian project our lab welcomed a visit from member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts prof. Miloš Djuran and former postdoc dr. Marija Živković. The meeting was instrumental in working out the final details of the manuscript revision of our upcoming article (stay tuned for news!). Prof. Djuran also had a lively discussion with the junior team members which was followed by an excursion to the Caves of Škocjan and a work lunch discussing future collaborations.

Although data will still be coming in over the next few months we have made a step farther both quality- and quantity-wise.

Wh have reached a record number of publications for the Turel group this year with a full dozen of new scientific papers in reputable journals such as Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry, Dalton Transactions, Journal of Computational Chemistry and RSC Advances. As of April 4^th we have also reported a record yearly number of citations (423).

Here are the highlights of 2016:

• 12 scientific papers,
• 1 book chapter (still upcoming, the same one as in 2015 it has fallen into a publishing limbo),
• 9 conference abstracts/posters,
• 4 invited lectures (Iztok Turel: 53^rd Meeting of the Serbian chemical society, University of Kragujevac, Serbia; 3rd International symposium on functional metal complexes that bind to biomolecules, Mallorca, Spain; 3rd International conference on herbal and synthetic drug studies, Pune, India, Jakob Kljun: 53^rd Meeting of the Serbian chemical society, University of Kragujevac, Serbia),
• 4 BSc theses (Primož Tič, Nina Podjed, Simona Gričar, Tomaž Zornik), 2 MSc theses (Veronika Rovanšek, Monika Uzelac), 1 PhD thesis (dr. Sara Seršen),
• Dr. Iztok Turel was awarded the Zois certificate of recognition for important achievements in the field of chemistry. It is one of the Highest State Awards in the Field of Scientific-Research and Science Development Activities (Zois awards and recognitions, the Ambassador of Science Awards of the Republic of Slovenia and Puh awards). The Ph.D. thesis of our former member dr. Sara Seršen was awarded a prize by Krka Pharmaceutical Factory (Novo mesto, Slovenia) for special research achievements.

We are also at a record-high number of group members with the appointment of researcher Jakob Kljun to a permanent position of assistant/researcher (80/20), 1 guest post-doc researcher from Belgrade, Serbia, 3 PhD students, 4 MSc students, 1 Erasmus BSc student from Lisbon, Portugal and another 2 Slovenian BSc students totalling 13 group members.

Ru-team 2017 under blossoming Japanese cherry trees in front of the FKKT building

Number of publications

Number of citations

We are pleased to announce that EurJIC’s Cluster Issue on “Metal Anticancer Complexes – Activity, Mechanism of Action and Future Perspectives” issue 12/2017, has just gone online! Guest edited by Professors Enzo Alessio and Zijian Guo, the cluster issue provides readers with a great collection of papers highlighting the stimulating developments in the field of metal anticancer complexes.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ejic.v2017.12/issuetoc

Our contribution to this special issue is a microreview entitled:

‘β-Diketones as scaffolds for anticancer drug design. From organic building blocks to natural products and metallodrug components.’

Check it out at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ejic.201601314/full

The Ph.D. thesis of our ex-member dr. Sara Seršen was awarded by Krka Pharmaceutical Factory (Novo mesto, Slovenia) for special research achievements. See more details at:

https://www.krkinenagrade.si/sl/o-krkinih-nagradah

The Highest State Awards in the Field of Scientific-Research and Science Development Activities (Zois awards and recognitions, the Ambassador of Science Awards of the Republic of Slovenia and Puh awards) were given out during a formal ceremony at Cankarjev dom in Ljubljana on 21^st of November 2016. Prof. Dr. Iztok Turel was awarded the Zois certificate of recognition for important achievements in the field of chemistry. See names of other prize winners and other details at:

http://www.mizs.gov.si/si/medijsko_sredisce/novica/browse/2/article/62/9845/

Postdoc Božidar Čobeljić is permanently employed as assistant at University of Belgrade, Serbia. He started his one-year stay in October 2016. His main field of research are metal complexes of Schiff bases of 2-quinolinecarboxaldehyde, 3-acetylpyridine and 2-(diphenylphosphino)benzaldehyde. During his stay he is planning the synthesis and characterization of new hydrazide ligands and their d- metal complexes.

New PhD student (young researcher) Jerneja Kladnik has started her doctoral studies in October 2016. Her study is funded by ARRS (Slovenian Research Agency) for four years. Before joining our group, Jerneja has finished a MSc in Pharmacy at the Faculty of Pharmacy in Ljubljana.

Catarina Cardoso Páscoa (4th year BSc student, Chemistry program @ Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal) joined us for one term of Erasmus practical training. At the Turel group she is involved in synthetic ruthenium chemistry on the subject of pyrithione metal complexes.

The Turel group welcomes our new team members and hopes for their pleasant and productive stay.