Cancer Stem Cells and Radiation Therapy
A special issue of Cells (ISSN 2073-4409). This special issue belongs to the section "Cellular Biophysics".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (25 March 2022) | Viewed by 4275
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Growing evidence supports the hierarchical organization of solid cancer with a small population of cancer stem cells/cancer-initiating cells at the apex of this hierarchy, able to regrow a tumor after sublethal treatment and to produce more differentiated progeny. The heterogeneity of cancers and the cancer stem cell hypothesis are a century-old concept in oncology that has been taken into consideration in radiation biology and radiotherapy for decades. Radiotherapy is and will remain a main pillar of clinical cancer treatment in the foreseeable future, and radiation is the most precisely administered ‘drug’ against cancer, and the one we continue to know the most about. Nevertheless, the radiobiology of cancer stem cells/cancer-initiating cells is less developed. In recent years, novel marker systems and culturing techniques that enrich cancer cells have taken radiobiology research on tumor-initiating cells to the next level.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the heterogeneity of cancer cells is not restricted to differences in tumorgenicity but also extends to their response to genotoxic stress, interaction with the tumor microenvironment, and targeted therapies in combined modality regimens. The purpose of this Special Issue is to summarize our current state of knowledge on the radiation biology of cancer stem/cancer-initiating cells in solid cancers, experimental methods, and gold standards to assess cancer stem cell/tumor-initiating cell traits at the functional level in vitro and in vivo and to highlight recent developments in the field to improve the efficacy of radiotherapy against cancer stem/cancer-initiating cells.
Prof. Dr. Frank Pajonk
Guest Editor
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