Karen Reckamp, MD, MS, assistant professor, Department of Medical Oncology & Therapeutics Research, City of Hope, Duarte, California, discusses the use of heat shock proteins in the treatment of lung cancer.

Reckamp explains that heat shock proteins act as chaperone proteins that permit oncoproteins to function. The proteins work as an alternative to inhibiting the tyrosine kinase pathway and are involved in multiple lung cancer related signalling pathways such as EGFR, RAS, ALK, and MET. Heat shock proteins can be used when resistance to other methods are developed.