Synthesis and Purification of a Nucleoside Platinum Complex That Promotes DNA Cross-Linking

Cancer is a deadly and ever present disease in humans and its treatment has become a focus of many types of research. This project was designed to synthesize a platinum complex that will cross-link DNA and in turn cause cell death for rapidly dividing cells (usually cancer cells). The target compound strongly resembled the structure of a nucleic acid, thymidine. Further, nucleic acids are extremely important to cell life and cell membranes have transporters specific for them. Therefore, the purpose to exploring this new platinum complex was to create compound that a cell can easily transport inside its cell and nuclear membranes. With an end product structure in mind, a series of seven reactions were attempted in the lab in order to create this compound. Upon purification by column chromatography, each intermediate was tested for structure and purity using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) and thin-layer chromatography (TLC)