Addmore Shonhai - Heat Shock Proteins of Malaria

Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology provides a platform for scientific contributions in the main disciplines of the biomedicine and the life sciences. This series publishes thematic volumes on contemporary research in the areas of microbiology, immunology, neurosciences, biochemistry, biomedical engineering, genetics, physiology, and cancer research. Covering emerging topics and techniques in basic and clinical science, it brings together clinicians and researchers from various fields.

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2020 Impact Factor: 2.622

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When Springer Nature invited us to consider a second edition of our book Heat Shock Proteins of Malaria, we were unsure if we could do justice to the book project. The field is developing apace, and at the time COVID-19 was in full flight as a global pandemic. Hence, we carefully pondered the merits of packaging the latest findings into a book. However, three major factors propelled the book project forward. Firstly, we obtained permission from Springer Nature to publish the chapters as both a book and part of a series that is indexed in all the major databases like a regular journal (in Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology). Secondly, our accomplished colleague in the chaperone field, Didier Picard, gladly accepted the invitation to serve as a co-editor of the book. The third factor was the enthusiasm with which the original authors and new authors engaged with the project, and stepped up to the task of producing their chapters. You will notice that the second edition has a few new chapters and that there is a cross-cutting drug target-drug discovery theme. A substantial number of studies have identified a range of small molecule inhibitors of Plasmodium falciparum heat shock proteins (especially PfHsp40, PfHsp70, and PfHsp90), including some that appear to be specific enough to inform drug discovery studies. Furthermore, there is a growing body of research on the structural and functional features of PfHsp70 and PfHsp90, which reveals that these chaperones are quite different from their human counterparts. These findings will no doubt have an impact on future antimalarial drug discovery studies, and we explore this in the book. Consequently, the second edition is not simply a set of updated chapters, but a substantially refreshed book, with rigorously peer-reviewed chapters that provide critical insights into the current status of the field. And so, it is our pleasure to present to you the second edition of our book, which we trust you will enjoy reading as much as we have enjoyed facilitating its creation.

We would like to thank all of those who played a role in this exciting book project. Without the re-commitment of the previous authors and the contributions of the new authors, the second edition of this book would not have been possible. We are also very grateful for the insightful and constructive comments of all the reviewers, whose input into the peer-review process has been key to the quality of the book chapters. In particular, we would like to acknowledge those reviewers who committed their expertise early in the development of the book project when we were considering the drug discovery theme, especially Jason Gestwicki (University of California at San Francisco, USA) for his insights in the chemical biology space.