Not boring at all

Abstract

The element boron is not renowned among biologists, short of a few specialists who know that it is an essential nutrient for plants and an element in boromycin—an antibiotic compound produced by Streptomyces . Yet, on the whole, molecular biologists and, in particular, those in drug development seem to have little use for carbon's left‐hand neighbour in the periodic table. This is about to change. Currently, boron is largely produced in Turkey and the USA, and is used in a wide range of products, including glass, detergents, fire retardants, fibres to reinforce plane fuselages and body armour, and in superhard materials. Now, both researchers and the pharmaceutical industry are showing an increasing interest in boron as an alternative to carbon in drug design. > …both researchers and the pharmaceutical industry are showing an increasing interest in boron as an alternative to carbon in drug design A series of recent scientific and commercial developments indicate that boron‐based compounds are interesting drug candidates against all disease categories and might even speed up drug development. Pharmaceutical companies have already increased their boron research, particularly GlaxoSmithKline (GSK; Brentford, UK), which announced a US$2.5 billion investment in the US company Anacor (Palo Alto, CA, USA) in November 2008. Anacor was founded in 2002 to develop boron‐based antibacterial drugs, but has since expanded into antivirals and other targets with its boron‐based platform. Co‐founders Lucy Shapiro and Stephen Benkovic began collaborating in 2001 to look for novel inhibitors of several newly identified bacterial target sites that, they thought, could lead to more effective antibiotics. “They randomly inserted boron and got good activity,” said David Perry, CEO of Anacor. This serendipitous discovery led to the formation of Anacor a year later. “We were lucky,” Perry conceded. “At that stage we had no idea what the broader potential of boron …