Special Issue "Cancer Stem Cells"

Guest Editor
Dr. Frank Pajonk
Department of Radiation Oncology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, 10833 Le Conte Avenue, Los Angeles 90095-1714, USA
Website: http://dmco.ucla.edu/Pajonk_Lab/F._Pajonk.html
E-Mail:
Interests: cancer; radiation; radiation oncology; cancer stem cells: hypoxia; Epo/EpoR; proteasome

Dear Colleagues,

Cancer treatment often must deal with the problem of recurrence. This leads to a question: are there specialized cells within a tumor that are relatively resistant to typical therapeutics and which possess the ability to reconstitute the malignancy? Put another way, do tumors contain “stem-like” cells with the properties of resistance and tumor reconstitution? Cancer stem cells (CSCs) have been defined as “cells within a tumor that possess the capacity to self-renew and to cause heterogeneous lineages of cancer cells that comprise the tumor” (see: http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/2006report/2006chapter9.htm). Putative CSCs have been identified for a variety of cancer types, and there are several theories to explain how CSCs develop and how they contribute to disease progression, including metastasis. This topic has profound implications for both the basic science of cancer biology, as well as for more applied studies of clinical and therapeutic relevance. Continued investigation of CSC biology will broaden our understanding of tumor initiation, progression, and metastasis, likely leading to novel preventive and therapeutic approaches against cancer. Therefore, we invite research and review papers in the broad field of cancer stem cells, including, but not limited to, topics relating CSCs to: cancer genetics, tumor biology, metastasis, cell signaling, diet and prevention, and pharmacological and genetic therapeutics. We look forward to your contributions.

Dr. Michael Bordonaro
Dr. Frank Pajonk
Guest Editors

Submission Information

All manuscripts should be submitted to cancers@mdpi.org with a copy to the Guest Editor. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. Papers will be published continuously (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Cancers is an international peer-reviewed Open Access monthly journal published by MDPI.

For the first two issues, to be published in 2009 and 2010, the Article Processing Charges (APC) will be waived for well-prepared manuscripts. English correction and/or formatting fees of 250 CHF (Swiss Francs) will be charged in certain cases for those articles accepted for publication that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections.