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Topic: Biomarker Discovery
and Precision Medicine
With advances of genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics
and metabolomics, blooming data have been available
for exploring molecular alternations in cancers. Many of
these molecular alternations have been investigated as
biomarkers for cancer diagnosis, prognosis and precision
therapies. Indeed, the success of most targeted anticancer
therapies, such as inhibitors for EGFR, ALK, BRAF, and
PARP as cancer therapies relies on biomarker-directed
precision therapy. This Special Issue contains several
articles in the areas of discovery of biomarkers, precision
Prof. Bing-Liang Fang medicine and immune oncology. It is now clear that cancers
with the same origins, clinical stages, and histopathologic
Department of Thoracic and diagnoses can be highly heterogeneous in responses
Cardiovascular Surgery, The University to targeted therapeutic agents and immune checkpoint
of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, therapies. Various clinical trials have been shown that
Houston, TX, USA. only a subgroup of patients benefit from pathway-targeted
therapy and immune checkpoint therapies. The inability
to identify patients likely to respond to a treatment is
one of the major challenges in the early stages of clinical
trials of anticancer agents and in clinical practice with
some approved anticancer agents. Thus, identification of
biomarkers capable of predicting treatment responses is
crucial for targeted therapies and immunotherapies of
cancers. The articles in this Special Issues discuss and/
or report recent advances in discoveries of biomarkers,
precision medicine and immune oncology, including
strategies, experimental approaches, technologies, and
clinical validations and applications. I hope this issue
will provide our readers with helpful information about
recent advances and achievements in this evolving field.
