Combined and Mixture Exposure Toxicology of Cancer
A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Oncology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2025 | Viewed by 23
Special Issue Editors
Interests: gene environment interaction; environmental toxicology; environmental public health; global oncology; global health
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The goal of this Special Issue is to curate original research and seminal reviews addressing the critical need to understand the causal mechanisms linking combined and mixture environmental exposures to cancer initiation, progression, and metastasis across diverse populations. In real-world scenarios, human exposure to a single agent is rare. Instead, individuals are exposed to a combined and complex mix of environmental factors, including dietary components, lifestyle behaviors, and chemical pollutants, from domestic, occupational, and recreational sources. Nevertheless, most toxicological studies and cancer risk assessments continue to focus on single-agent models, which leaves a gap in the knowledge to capture the complexity of real-world exposures.
This Special Issue aims to bring together experts from environmental epidemiology, toxicology, oncology, machine learning, and AI-driven bioinformatics to advance our understanding of the causality of cancer in response to complex mixture exposures. We hope that this collection will serve as a valuable resource for researchers, clinicians, and policy leaders seeking to reduce the cancer burden through informed, evidence-based environmental health risk assessment and prevention strategies for disparate communities.
We are pleased to invite original research articles and substantive reviews that help clarify mechanistic insights into oncogenic pathways activated by combined exposures, including, but not limited to, chronic inflammation, oxidative stress, DNA damage, epigenetic alterations, and cell cycle dysregulation. Of special interest are studies that investigate whether these mechanisms interact synergistically, additively, or antagonistically, potentially intensifying cancer risks or influencing the aggressiveness of tumors in specific tissues. The Special Issue will prioritize work proposing early biomarkers of exposure-driven carcinogenesis, especially those with translational potential for diagnosis or intervention. Contributions that employ innovative approaches, such as high-throughput omics, in vitro and in vivo models, in silico toxicology, machine learning, and AI-driven bioinformatics, are strongly encouraged to move toward establishing causal links between exposures and cancer outcomes, rather than identifying associations and correlations.
We look forward to receiving your contributions.
Dr. Alok Deoraj
Dr. Quentin Felty
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- combined exposure
- mixture exposure
- toxicology of cancer
- omics of cancer
- AI in carcinogenesis
- machine learning use in cancer
- cancer biomarkers
- pollutants of cancer
- agrochemicals
- endocrine-disruptive chemicals
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