Novel Therapeutic Targets in Cancers 3.0

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue is the continuation of our previous Special Issues “Novel Therapeutic Targets in Cancers” and “Novel Therapeutic Targets in Cancers 2.0”.

In recent decades, we have developed novel precision oncology protocols that are starting to see adoption in routine clinical practice. However, despite major advances, the dream of converting solid tumors into a chronic disease is still unfulfilled, and long-term remission has not yet been achieved.

Starting from preclinical models (cell lines, organoids, and murine models), we can identify oncogenic pathways, mechanisms of resistance, and novel avenues to inhibit tumor growth and metastatic spread that will eventually enter clinical trials. Novel technologies, such as those able to pinpoint the contribution of tumor heterogeneity to transformation and tumor dissemination, as well as tumor evolution during drug response and recurrence, will revolutionize cancer treatment by expanding the therapeutic arsenal at our disposal. State-of-the-art precision medicine protocols require the convergence of multiple interdisciplinary contributions, including the identification of single-cell-specific genetic and epigenetic alterations, the discovery of diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers, the implementation of efficient and specific diagnostic tools, the design of genomic editing protocols, and the planning of well-designed therapeutic strategies that take into consideration the best sequential options to delay/prevent the development of recurrence. This Special Issue welcomes original investigations as well as concise review manuscripts from experts in these relevant research fields. This Special Issue is supervised by Dr. Elena Levantini and assisted by our Topical Advisory Panel Member Dr. Giorgia Maroni.

The topics of interest for our Special Issue include, but are not limited to:

1. Solid tumor heterogeneity;
2. Targeted therapy, including target identification and validation;
3. Immune modulation;
4. RNA-based therapy;
5. Epigenetic therapy;
6. Combination therapy, considering also sequential treatments and drug holidays;
7. Cancer stem cell targeting;
8. Recurrence mechanisms;
9. Tumor evolution as defined by high-resolution transcriptomics;
10. Preclinical modeling of the heterogeneous tumor milieux.

Please note that manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics or the computational analysis of public genomic or transcriptomic databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent cohort or biological validation in vitro or in vivo) are out of scope for this section.

Dr. Elena Levantini
Guest Editor

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• targeted therapy
• precision oncology
• immune modulation
• cancer stem cell targeting
• RNA-based therapy