Proposed by Dr Mark Walport (Wellcome Trust) this Seminar examined the discovery, use and impact of platinum salts as chemotherapy agents for cancer. Organized with the assistance of Professor Paul Andrews (St George's Hospital Medical School) and Dr Tony Woods (Wellcome Trust) and chaired by Professor Sir Kenneth Calman (Durham) the Seminar discussed the serendipitous emergence of platinum salts as widely used anticancer agents from a chance observation in a microbiology laboratory; through their use especially for the treatment of previously untreatable solid tumours such as those of the testes and ovary; and their significance in the development of antiemetic agents for chemotherapy patients. Participants included chemists, oncologists, and academic and industrial pharmacologists who devised, in particular, the 5HT3 receptor antagonists.

Participants included: Professor Kenneth Bagshawe, Dr Penelope Brock, Professor Hilary Calvert, Professor David Grahame-Smith, Professor Richard Gralla, Professor Kenneth Harrap, Dr James Hoeschele, Professor Ian Judson, Mr Wesley Miner, Professor Robert Naylor, Mrs Brenda Reynolds, Dr John Rudd, Dr Gareth Sanger, Dr David Tattersall, Professor Andrew Thomson, Professor Robert Williams and Dr Eve Wiltshaw.

Introduction by Professor Matti Aapro, 142pp, 3 appendices, 9 figures, biographical notes, references, glossary and index.

Christie D A, Tansey E M. (eds) (2007) The discovery, use and impact of platinum salts as chemotherapy agents for cancer, Wellcome Witnesses to Twentieth Century Medicine, vol. 30. London: The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL.
ISBN 978 085484 1127