Aptamers and Cancer

Dear Colleagues,

Cancer is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the world. Recently, it was estimated that, in 2021, 20 million people would be diagnosed for the first time with cancer and 10 million more would die of cancer. Advances in diagnostic protocols and methods, as well as new therapeutic tools, have enabled a substantial increase in disease-free time and patient survival for various types of cancer. However, the increased incidence and prevalence of many types of malignant neoplasms and the poor response to treatment in many patients make new advances necessary both for the determination of markers with prognostic and diagnostic value, as well as for the establishment of new therapeutic targets. Aptamers are small, single-stranded nucleic acids that are capable of adopting complex three-dimensional structures that allow them to interact specifically and with high affinity with their target molecule. This technology has been around for more than 30 years, but it is still largely unknown in many scientific environments. However, aptamers are emerging in recent years as potential tools in these fields in clear competition with other biomolecules (mainly antibodies and small molecules) due to their high efficacy, low toxicity, and lower production costs. In recent years, numerous articles have been published describing new aptamers against tumor markers and therapeutic targets, as well as the development of new diagnostic systems using previously described aptamers. In this Special Issue, original papers and reviews related to the use of aptamers for the diagnosis and therapy of different types of tumors are presented.

We are pleased to invite you to participate in this Special Issue of Cancers by submitting an original article or revision related to your research area and, in particular, to the use of aptamers for the diagnosis and prognosis of cancer or as potential antitumor drugs.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Victor M. Gonzalez
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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.