Identifying Molecular Chaperones as Therapeutic Targets for Cancer: A Mini Review

According to combined NCI, ACS and CDC report for 2016, in US alone, 1.7 million new cancer cases and 0.6 million fatalities due to cancer have been projected. Over past fifty years tremendous progress has been made in treatment regimen challenging the concept of cancer being incurable. Due to the advances in chemo and radiation therapy, diagnosis of cancer is notalways thought of as a death sentence. The 5-year survival rate has shown an upward trend during this time (standing at 19% in 2012). But cancer has proven complex, increasingly resistant and highly prone to relapse. 

For the sake of comparison, unlike AIDS, cancer doesn’t have a singular viral origin and unlike Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s it is not restricted to biochemical manipulation through one protein in one organ only. By no means do we want to infer thatother diseases are any less complex but cancer is quite heterogeneous at themolecular and cellular levels. Further, diversity in terms of causes, types, organs affected, severity, and metastases has made it very difficult to combat this disease (system). Therefore, an immediate need of drug development is imperative that in turn requires extensive elucidation of the intricate mechanisms of cancer progression. The unraveled targets thus could be used for efficient anti-cancer drug design.

Amyloid Beta and the Brain: Where Are We Now?

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is certainly the most devastating and common form of dementia afflicting more than 40 million people worldwide today, with an expected escalation up to 130 million by 2050. Theearly sign of dementia is represented by the difficulty in remembering recentevents but more symptoms emerge as AD inexorably progresses, including confusion, disorientation, severe memory loss and cognitive alterations, mood and behavioural changes, difficulties in reading, writing, speaking, swallowing and walking. These increasing disabilities dramatically affect the daily life of patients but also of their relatives, and have a highly relevant socioeconomic impact, taking into account direct, indirect and intangible costs.

Certainly, in the last 30 years a milestone of AD research has been the discovery of the amyloid β peptide (Aβ) that, since then,has been considered the main cause of the pathology. Thus, the “amyloid hypothesis” soon became the prevailing theoretical model of AD pathophysiology that is still driving the development of pharmacological treatments.