Design, synthesis and functional evaluation of novel heterocyclic compounds for innovative approaches for cancer treatment.

Cancer is one of the most diagnosed diseases in the world and one of the main causes of death; among all, breast and lung cancer are those with the highest incidence. The incidence of different cancers is strictly linked to different factors such as patients’ gender, age, genetics, sedentary life, alcohol abuse or environmental factors. Although medicine provides us with various therapeutic possibilities like chemotherapy or radiotherapy, scientific research is always looking for more effective therapies. The recent discovery of specific enzymes expressed in cancer cells has opened to a new research and synthesis of target- specific compounds. In particular the overexpression of ALDH’s (Aldehyde Dehydrogenases) isoforms or aldose reductase (ALR2) in Cancer stem cells has been shown to provide cancer cells resistance to chemo and radiotherapy and to increase their survival. In a similar way, also the enzyme SIRT1, a well know cardioprotective enzyme, seemed to be involved in different cancer’s pathways, affecting this pathology both in positive and negative way. Targeting with high specificity and inhibiting some ALDH’s isoforms, like the 1A3, overexpressed in breast cancer, prostate cancer and glioblastoma, or the ALR2 or activating the SIRT1 could represent a novel innovative approach to cancer therapy.