Metals and life

Metals and life

Eleanor Crabb and Elaine Moore (eds) 

Cambridge: RSC 2010 | Pp226 | £24.95 | ISBN978-1849730594

Reviewed by Simon Cotton

Four chemical elements (C, H, N, O) make up 99 per cent of the human body; this book is concerned with the metallic elements that make up much of the remaining one per cent. Written both as a text for the Open University course S347 Metals and life, the book also to serve as a stand-alone volume and it complements the book Concepts in transition metal chemistry (reviewed in Educ. Chem., 2010, 47 (5), 159). 

After an introductory chapter, successive chapters deal with ligands; metal uptake; metal transport; metal storage; biomineralisation; the role of metalloproteins in biological processes and some key biological processes. In addition to this, an online chapter covers metals in medicine, where it links with other books in the RSC ebook collection, as well as a goodly number of reviews from the literature, most of which, however, are only available to OU students. This chapter includes valuable sections on platinum anti-cancer drugs and their means of action, gadolinium in MRI, and radiopharmaceuticals (especially Tc). End of chapter questions are also to be found on the companion website.