The Future of the Cancer Treatment: The Immunotherapy Next Generation

Dear Colleagues,

Cancer, one of the most widely spread forms of disease, is slowly taking over the world. Over time, a number of conventional cytotoxic approaches has been developed, but their limited effectiveness, in accordance with the heterogeneity of cancer cells, prompts to the constant search for new therapeutic approaches with improved outcomes, such as immunotherapy. Immunotherapy, which utilizes and enhances the normal capacity of the patient's immune system, was first used in the 19th century, but has developed to this day, and continues to do so. The main types of immunotherapeutic approaches include cancer vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, immune checkpoint inhibitors, and other non-specific therapies. After decades of intense effort, the therapeutics that leverage the immune system to contrast the cancer, have now conclusively demonstrated their effectiveness. However, the search for novel methods to improve immunotherapy continues without any reduction in intensity or strength. In this way, the use of small molecule immunotherapeutic approaches for the treatment of cancer are especially interesting. Small molecules can either reduce immune suppression in the tumor milieu or enhance the activation of cytotoxic lymphocyte responses to the tumor, and might be used as monotherapies or combined with other cancer therapies to increase and broaden their efficacy. Insight into the more promising immunotherapeutic approaches in the form of original research articles or reviews in all areas of cancer, experimental designs, and therapeutic approaches are welcome.

Prof. Dr. Amedeo Amedei
Dr. Elena Niccolai
Guest Editors

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 short 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-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Molecules 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 2700 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.