Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a non-invasive treatment of cancer with an advantage of having localized photo-activation of the drug at the targeted tumor cells leaving the healthy cells unaffected by the photo-toxicity of the PDT agent. Organic molecules and 4d/5d metal complexes have been extensively studied for their DNA cleavage activity and photo-cytotoxicity in UV and/or visible light. The photoactivity of the current PDT drugs is due to reactive singlet oxygen species. To address the hypoxic nature within neoplasia and to get a realistic scenario to build model and potent PDT agents, attempts have been made in this thesis work to design and synthesize new cobalt and copper complexes having a variety of ancillary ligands and planar phenanthroline bases showing efficient visible light-induced anaerobic plasmid DNA cleavage activity. The disulfide and thiol compounds are known to generate thyil radical in anaerobic medium in presence of some electron donating solvent. To exploit this chemistry of the sulfur anion radical as a reactive species damaging DNA under light irradiation, we have prepared copper(II) complexes of bis(2-hydroxybenzylamino-ethyl)disulfide and D-penicillaminedisulfide and characterized. The complexes are moderate binders to calf thymus DNA and exhibit plasmid DNA cleavage activity in red light. Near-IR light-induced double-strand DNA cleavage activity is observed for the complexes having 3,3' -dithiodipropionic acid and phenanthroline bases. These complexes show lethal double strand breaks in SC DNA responsible for the inhibition in DNA repair mechanism in the cells thus becoming potent candidates as transcription inhibitors. The work has been extended to achieve better visible light-induced plasmid DNA cleavage activity and UV light-induced photocytotoxicity using a more bio-compatible metal ion, viz. cobalt(II) with the same ligand system and enhancement in the photocytotoxicity is observed. To investigate the role of the disulfide ancillary ligands, complexes of salicylideneaminothiophenol bound to the copper(II) are prepared and the complexes show significant plasmid DNA cleavage activity in red light. Finally, ternary cobalt(III) phenanthroline base complexes are prepared to study their DNA cleavage activity in red light and photo-cytotoxicity in UV light. The complexes show efficient plasmid DNA cleavage activity in red light, significant cytotoxicity in UV light, low dark cytotoxicity, and protein (BSA, lysozyme) cleavage activity in UV light. The mechanistic aspects of the photo-induced DNA and protein cleavage activity of the complexes have been studied. A dual involvement of the charge transfer and d-d band is observed in the photosensitization process leading to generation of reactive oxygen species. In summary, the thesis work presents cobalt and copper complexes having thiolate and disulfide moieties that are designed and synthesized as new photodynamic therapeutic agents showing anaerobic DNA cleavage activity in red light and photocytotoxicity. The present study opens up new strategies for designing and developing cobalt and copper based photosensitizers for their potential photochemotherapeutic applications under hypoxic reaction conditions. References: Lahiri, D. et al., J Chern. Sci, 2010, 122, 321-333; Inorg. Chern., 2009, 48, 339-349; Dalton Trans. 2010,39,1807-1816; Polyhedron, 2010, 29, 2417-2425.