Precision Cell Therapy in Cancer: From Molecular Profiling to Personalized Treatment

Dear Colleagues,

Cancer is a heterogeneous disease with variance in molecular profile including DNA, RNA, proteins, and metabolites. Molecular profiling is the analysis of cancer cells conducted to pinpoint their biological differences from normal cells. Understanding the molecular profile of an individual’s disease can help with developing precision oncology-based treatment strategies. Following molecular profiling for classifying different tumor diseases, it will provide regimens and then improve cell treatment efficacy; now, a new generation of technologies allows us to study molecular profiling analyses for the precision treatment of personalized cell therapy.

Because molecular profiles differ from one person to another, optimized cell treatment should also be different from one person to another. Detecting a patient's molecule profiles, including DNA-level aspects such as GWAS and epigenetics, RNA-level aspects such as mRNA transcripts and microRNA and piRNA profiles, proteomics and metabolic profiles provide a prerequisite for precision medicine; thus, using the precision medicine based on molecular profiles can improve personalized cell therapy. This Special Issue, ‘Precision Cell Therapy in Cancer: From Molecular Profiling to Personalized Treatment’, presents a collection of contributions by outstanding clinical researchers focusing on fields that utilize molecular profiles for cell therapy.

This comprehensive collection of articles will cover basic/clinical research and clinical applications, including the following:

(1)  Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS): NGS is used to sequence tumor tissue or liquid biopsies to identify specific actionable mutations, such as those in the EGFR or BRAF genes. Moreover, other molecular profiles such as RNA, protein, and metabolite-level profiles reveal other alterations, such as amplifications or fusions, that make a tumor susceptible to certain cell treatments.

(2)  Biomarker identification: Molecular profiling identifies biomarkers such as PD-L1 expression or mismatch repair (MMR) status, which are critical for determining eligibility for immunotherapies.

(3)  Tumor microenvironment analysis: Techniques such as single-cell RNA sequencing can characterize the complex cellular landscape of a tumor, including immune cell subpopulations and stromal cells. This provides deeper insights to improve cell therapy.

(4) This comprehensive collection also consists of cell therapy based on molecular profiles, including the following:

(A)  CAR T-cell therapy: In this approach, a patient's T cells are genetically engineered to recognize and destroy cancer cells. Molecular profiling can help to predict which patients are most likely to respond to CAR T-cell therapy and can be used to select the most appropriate CAR target.

(B)  TIL based on molecular profiles for cellular therapies: A molecular analysis of tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TILs), which are heterogeneous lymphocytes from tumor tissues, including TIL (CD8)-, B-TIL-, NK-, NKT- and DC based-vaccines, can be used to select the most appropriate cell-based therapies via TIL molecular profiling.

(C)  Dendritic cells (DCs) based on molecular profiles for creating a tumor vaccine with DC therapies: Analyzing a tumor's molecular profile is a key step in creating a personalized (DC) vaccine. This molecular analysis identifies tumor-specific antigens, such as neoantigens, that are then used to create the patient's unique DC ex vivo cell vaccine.

This Special Issue will advance cell therapy via molecular profiling analyses; this approach can improve the efficacy of new cell therapy for patients.

Dr. Biaoru Li
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (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 thoroughly refereed through a single-blind 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 semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• molecular profiling
• precision cell therapy
• Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS)
• biomarker identification
• CAR T-cell therapy