Medicinal chemistry with fullerenes and fullerene derivatives

The study of the biological applications of fullerenes has attracted increa sing attention despite the low solubility of the carbon spheres in physiolo gical media, The organic functionalisation of fullerenes has helped solubil isation by covalent attachment of hydrophilic appendages. Therefore, recent ly synthesised fullerene derivatives reach satisfactory concentrations in w ater. However, the tendency of the fullerenes to form clusters is enhanced in polar media, where better solubilisation can be achieved by means of mul tiple functionalisation or using micellar systems. Once homogeneously disso lved, the fullerenes and fullerene derivatives exhibit an interesting range of biological activities, especially promising in the field of photodynami c therapy, HIV, neuroprotection and apoptosis.