Access

News and Views

Nature Chemical Biology 3, 455–457 (1 August 2007) | doi:10.1038/nchembio0807-455

Chaperoning cell death: a critical dual role for Hsp90 in small-cell lung cancer

Paul Workman & Marissa V Powers

Our current understanding of the molecular chaperone heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) has emerged from a superb example of chemical biology in action. Hsp90 inhibitors, initially natural products and later synthetic small molecules, have proved invaluable as chemical tools to investigate Hsp90 biology; the initial chemical probes have now morphed into drugs showing therapeutic activity in cancer patients.