Targeting chaperones to treat cancer

Professor Paul Workman is a world-leading expert in cancer drug development, leading the Cancer Research UK Cancer Therapeutics Unit at The Institute of Cancer Research.

In this short interview, filmed by the AACR at the recent San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, he explains how ‘chaperone’ proteins – molecules that escort other proteins around within cells – could be an important target for treating cancer.

In many cancers these chaperones are overactive, stabilising faulty proteins that drive the growth of cancer cells. Professor Workman and his team are developing drugs that can ‘knock out’ the chaperones, causing chaos within cancer cells and stopping them from growing.  Some of these drugs are already being tested in early stage clinical trials, with some promising results.

Watch the interview to find out more:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkIKzD7WN-I]

 Kat