If a component is hydrophobic, meaning it repels water, it is well placed to enter cells by crossing the membrane. If it is hydrophilic, meaning water-loving, it will naturally be soluble in water. The hydrophobic/hydrophilic interactions also affect how a molecule makes contact and communication with target proteins and nucleic acids.

The fact that novel boron compounds will be unfamiliar to life has potential advantages for antibiotic drugs, since pathogens will be less able to develop resistance against them. "Also the kind of interactions would be somehow different from key-lock systems built up in living cell lines in nature for billions of years," said Lesnikowski. "We can thus anticipate that active substances would be less prone to development of resistance. This is an obvious advantage of boron drugs, Lesnikowski says.

While eventually pathogens such as bacteria and viruses are capable of evolving resistance against almost any molecule that attacks them, Lesnikowski believes that it would take longer for this to happen in the case of boron based compounds which would therefore make it easier for humans to remain one step ahead rather than struggling to keep pace as at present.

Apart from lack of knowledge over the potential, development of boron compounds for medicine has been held back until now by the high cost of catalysts and boron based intermediate compounds used in the synthesis. Another important recent development therefore was availability of lower cost intermediates in the synthesis processes, says Lesnikowski.

The European Research Organization, which sponsored the boron meeting, is located in Strasbourg, Cedex, France.

Back to HCB News

More Industry Headlines