Preclinical photodynamic therapy in Spain 1: Chemical and photophysical studies on porphycenes and other photosensitizers

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a rapidly expanding alternative to the treatment of solid tumors and other highly-proliferative diseases due to its many attractive features: high selectivity, repeatability, and lack of serious adverse effects. The five drugs approved for use in PDT to date suffer from different problems that limit their efficacy and safety. Current understanding of cell death mechanisms offers an opportunity for the development of new, more efficient and safer drugs. This highlight describes the efforts of our research group in the PDT field: chemical development of porphycenes as PDT photosensitizers, photophysical screening of new families of potential PDT agents, and development of spectroscopic techniques for directly monitoring singlet oxygen and thus better understand the production, diffusion, and reactivity of this primary cytotoxic species in cells.