Chelation Therapy in the Treatment of Metal Intoxication

Jan Aaseth was born in 1943 in Norway. He graduated in medicine in 1968 from University of Oslo. After the internship period he became authorized physician in 1970. In the period 1970-77 he worked at department of clinical chemistry and Institute of clinical biochemistry, Oslo University Hospital, with a grant from the National Research Council. He completed his doctoral thesis on metal chelation in 1976, and became an authorized specialist in medical biochemistry. In the period 1977-83 he continued his research on biochemical toxicology at the National Institute of Occupation Health of Norway. During this time he specialized in occupational medicine, and he chaired the Department of Experimental Toxicology for two years. After a subsequent period of specialization also in internal medicine, he was appointed as chair and professor of the Department of Occupational Medicine, University of Tromsø, Norway. Later, he has been head of department of clinical chemistry and section on endocrinology at Innlandet Hospital, and in recent years professor at Hedmark University College.

Professor Aaseth is an enthusiastic teacher. During his carrier he has lectured on medical biochemistry, toxicology, occupational and environmental medicine, internal medicine, nutrition and endocrinology, and he has been supervisor to numerous undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate students during their research projects. He has published some 200 papers.

Professor Aaseth is chair of the Nordic Trace Element Society and vice chair of the Committee for Geomedicine of The Norwegian Academy of Science. He has served on the organizing or scientific committees of several international conferences, including as chair of the First International Symposium on ‘Trace Elements in Human Health and Disease’ in Loen, Norway, 1985, and also of the subsequent Nordic symposia on this topic in 1993 and in 2013. He served in the scientific committee of the International Conference on Chelation, Paphos, Cyprus 2012, and in the organizing committee of the Conference of the International Society of Trace Element Research in Humans, Dubrovnik, October 2015.

- President of "Società Chimica Italiana - Sezione Sardegna" (2000-2001)

- Dean of the Department of "Scienze Chimiche" at Cagliari University (2004-2007)

- President of the European Group of Thermodynamic of Metal Complexes (2010-2013)

- Chair of two ISMEC meetings in Cagliari (1997 and 2007), and of two International Summer Schools, the first on Inorganic Biochemistry (2013) and the second on Bioinorganic Medicinal Chemistry (2015)

- Guest Editor of four issues of Coordination Chemistry Reviews published (1999, 2008, 2012 and 2015), and of two issues of Current Medicinal Chemistry, the first on “The State of Art in the Treatment of Metal Toxicity” (2014) and the second on “Applications of Bioinorganic Chemistry in Medicinal Chemistry”, to be published

- Author of the chapter “Metal Ion Toxicity” on Encyclopedia of Inorganic and Bioinorganic Chemistry (John Wiley & Sons, Ltd)

- Coauthor of seven books

- Author of more than 120 papers on international Journals

The majority of Professor Crisponi works deal with analytical studies on the distribution of toxic elements in various human tissues, solution equilibria studies on the interaction between metal ions and bio-molecules by potentiometric, spectrophotometric and NMR techniques, and design, synthesis and characterization of metal chelators for clinical applications to remove toxic metal ions from humans. He is member of the Editorial Board of Mini-Reviews in Medicinal Chemistry, Journal of Inorganic Chemistry and Journal of Analytical Methods in Chemistry.