Molecular and Cellular Mechanisms of Cancers: Colorectal Cancer

Dear Colleagues,

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer in both men and women and the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. It has always been recognized as a heterogeneous disease, where the clinical course is unique to every patient in terms of prognosis and treatment response. With the rapid advancement in the medical field and the wide use of next-generation sequencing techniques to understand CRC, researchers and physicians are moving away from a “one size fits all” strategy in treating the disease to identifying novel biomarkers that can be targeted to specifically treat every patient. Nevertheless, treatment of most CRC patients requires a multimodality approach that includes surgical intervention, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy. It is thus crucial to decipher the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the initiation and progression of this intractable cancer and accordingly identify the unique biomarkers associated with it to aid in cancer diagnosis and improve prognosis. This approach in the management of CRC—by applying basic and translational research with bed-side clinical research—is the hub for “personalized medicine” in the 21st century, and it is an area of great interest to all physicians and researchers working in the field, in particular molecular pathologists and hematology-oncologists. This issue focuses on research and experiences related to CRC. This may include deciphering the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the initiation, promotion, and progression of CRC in addition to the identification of novel cancer biomarkers and therapeutic targets, with focus on the prospects for improving personalized cancer care using new technologies to enhance cancer patient diagnoses, management, and outcomes. In this Special Issue, we invite researchers in molecular pathology, hematology–oncology, hematopathology, stem cells, and other fields of cancer research to submit high-quality empirical papers or reviews related to the issues in this research area.

Dr. Wassim Abou-Kheir
Dr. Hisham Bahmad
Topic Editors