NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – New assays detecting complexes of heat shock proteins in cancer cells could be used to predict patient response to inhibitors of those proteins.

The protein complexes involve chaperone proteins, specifically so-called heat-shock proteins that are also involved in general response to cellular stress, among other functions. Led by Gabriela Chiosis, a team of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) scientists found that while they're not universally essential to cancer, for the cancers that have them, the complexes are essential for survival.