Biomarkers in the Era of Precision Oncology
A special issue of Cancers (ISSN 2072-6694). This special issue belongs to the section "Cancer Biomarkers".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2022) | Viewed by 59481
Special Issue Editor
Interests: cancer immunology; cancer immunotherapy; biomarkers; precision oncology; immune resistance; cancer vaccines; immune escape; immune checkpoint inhibitors
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Cancer progression and metastasis consist of complex molecular mechanisms that negatively impact immune-related pathways. Even though our molecular and immunological knowledge of cancer have been extensively increased, standard therapies in several types of cancer still rely on chemotherapy and radiotherapy regimens. On the other hand, novel therapeutic modalities, including targeted therapies, vaccinations, and immune checkpoint blockade, have been demonstrated to induce clinical effectiveness in a limited number of patients.
Therefore, combinatorial treatments targeting such molecular and immune pathways are mandatory for an effective cancer therapy. Such treatments rely on prognostic and/or predictive biomarkers that precisely characterize each patients’ molecular and immune landscapes, making their discovery an urgent need.
Precision oncology has already begun to signal a new era in cancer therapy. Nevertheless, we are still far from the discovery of reliable biomarkers for the selection of patients who can benefit from immunotherapeutic or targeted interventions. Although several biomarkers have been described in the literature, including the tumor mutational burden, the number, function and location of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes, and the expression of programmed death-ligand 1, there remains an unmet need for the discovery of additional biomarkers to promote novel and tailored therapeutic modalities.
In this Special Issue, we aim to highlight the importance of integrating cancer patients’ clinicopathological parameters and immune-related and/or tumor-associated biomarkers which will eventually guide the accurate accrual of patients as well as optimize clinical decision-making. To this end, it is within our priorities to present studies expanding from basic to translational research and clinical trials involving novel “multi-omics” approaches, including genomic, proteomic, transcriptomic and metabolomic analyses of cancerous tissues and liquid biopsies. Such analyses, in conjunction with the acquired clinical information, will create a multi-modal data system that will allow for the definition of favorable personalized therapeutic protocols and avoid over-dosing phenomena, which may lead to ineffective therapies and adverse side effects. I hope that this Special Issue will advance our knowledge of alternative therapeutic modalities for applying precision oncology in the clinical management of cancer, simultaneously proposing the most promising perspectives for the future.
Dr. Constantin N. Baxevanis
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- cancer
- precision oncology
- omics
- biomarkers
- high-throughput technologies
- immunotherapies
- targeted therapies
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