Paper accepted: New series of metal complexes by amphiphilic biopolymeric Schiff bases from modified chitosans: Preparation, characterization and effect of molecular weight on its biological applications.”

Today, the third paper from Hellen Barbosa’s half year doctoral sandwich stay with us in 2017 under the direct supervision of Dr. Maha Attjioui has been accepted for publication in the International Journal of Biological Macromolecules. Hellen had prepared and chemically characterized, at her home university in Sao Paulo, Brazil, several series of chitosan derivatives which she brought with her to test them for biological activities in our lab. These were metal complexes of chitosan Schiff bases with salicylaldehyde which were further modified with glycidol to improve solubility. In their first paper, they had described the salicylaldehyde-grafted chitosans, inclulding their metal complexes, and their biological activities. The second paper described the influence of the addition of glycidol groups to the salicylaldehyde-grafted chitosans. And in this third paper, they finally present their results on the metal complexes of these glycidol-substituted salicylaldehyde-chitosans. The antibacterial activities correlated with the metal contents and were independent of the molecular weights, while the antifungal activities were independent of the metal contents and increased with decreasing molecular weight, indicating different modes of action. The highest and most selective anti-tumour activity was seen with the low molecular weight zink complexes. Our Brazilian partners are continuing to develop these chitosan derivatives for pharmaceutical purposes. With one PhD and three papers as an output, Hellen’s stay with us has been extremely fruitful. We are looking forward to more of that kind!