Molecular and Clinical Indicators of Cancer Management: Perspective on Cellular Therapy and Precision Medicines

Dear Colleagues,

Cancer is a complex disease that develops through the acquisition of several genetic lesions and epigenetic changes, some of which may lead cells a step closer to malignancy. Tumor cells can accumulate hundreds of mutations, and aggressive cancers may be composed of many genetically heterogeneous clones, making their molecular traits difficult to decipher. Thus, it is important to establish the contribution of different genes and pathways that cooperate in providing the tumor cells with specific phenotypical traits. Along with the rapid developments in the diagnosis of genomics and immunology in cancer, therapies targeted to specific molecular alterations or other biologic characteristics in cancer are becoming possible. In addition to genomics, RNA analyzed with transcriptomics and proteins that are detected by proteomics are also important in mediating biological effects. As cellular and molecular mechanisms governing cancer growth have been found to be highly conserved between humans, mice, fish, worms, and flies, it can be anticipated that other innovative experimental models should be developed and used in the future to address particular aspects of malignancy transformation. The complicated reality of malignancy means scientists shift the traditional paradigm of pathological tumor type-centered cancer therapy to treatment with gene-directed and/or immune characteristics (histology-agnostic approaches).

Surprisingly, the routine clinical introduction of cell-based immunotherapy has completely resketched the treatment landscape of cancer management. Genetically modified immune cells, such as CAR-T cells, have produced incredible responses in some solid tumors. These immune cells have enhanced the functional ability and protection from negative signals from immune checkpoints and the hostile tumor microenvironment. However, more therapeutic precision is still required to target tumors accurately. The key to precise medical treatment is to clearly define the individual characteristics and provide corresponding treatments as much as possible. Applying personalized drug combinations to address a higher percentage of aberrations present in individual cancers can help us obtain better outcomes. Compared with genomic markers, proteomic markers have a weak correlation with clinical outcomes, indicating that some technical problems should be solved. The precise treatments with molecular variants and immune classification are still limited. However, some clinical trials showed significantly improved clinical outcomes after precise therapy or immunotherapy compared to random chemotherapy.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Tumor classification via genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, immunology, and other technology; 
• Personalized therapeutic methods based on tumor classification via genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, immunology, and other technology; 
• Research on precise tumor therapy based on other diagnostic theories; 
• Prediction of drug resistance on gene variation, transcriptional variation, and post-transcriptional molecular modification variation; 
• Advancements in CAR-T and immunotherapy;
• Development of anticancer drugs and their underlying mechanisms.

Dr. Rick Francis Thorne
Dr. Ihtisham Bukhari
Guest Editors

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• cancer management
• immunotherapy
• precision medicine
• anticancer drugs
• cancer biomarkers
• cancer development