Liquid Biopsy: Cancer Diagnostic Biomarkers of the Future

A special issue of Diagnostics (ISSN 2075-4418). This special issue belongs to the section "Pathology and Molecular Diagnostics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 March 2025 | Viewed by 39

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
1. Division of Molecular Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, The University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA
2. Department of Pathology, The University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA
3. Full Member, UNM Comprehensive Cancer Center, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA
Interests: the biology and therapeutic utility of circulating tumor cells (CTCs); liquid biopsies; mechanisms of brain metastasis and dormancy in breast and melanoma cancers; molecular crosstalks between dormant bone-marrow (BM) cells and CTCs; roles of BM and BM cellular heterogeneity interplaying with metastasis and dormancy
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Cancer metastasis represents the culmination of tumor progression and is the main cause of death among patients with cancer. Notably, Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs) comprise a rare and heterogeneous cell population that sheds from tumors and traverses the peripheral blood stream throughout the metastatic process, e.g., from early pre-malignant lesions to fatal metastatic disease. Consequently, the concept of “Liquid Biopsy” to interrogate CTCs and other blood analytes (ctDNA, exosomes, microRNAs, etc.) for their clinical application as precision medicine tools has significantly expanded in the last two decades, following the first implementation of Liquid Biopsy proving the clinical utility of CTCs as independent prognostic indicators of progression-free and overall survival of patients with metastatic cancer. Since then, the field of “Liquid Biopsy” has witnessed not only the development and commercialization of multiple platforms, technologies, and tests but also the augmentation of knowledge characterizing CTC biology and CTC biomarkers. These advances have resulted in novel analyses employing enrichment platforms which either capture CTCs by multiple parameters, profile CTC at the single-cell level, or identify specific CTC biomarker expression and/or gene transcripts. Collectively, CTC/Liquid Biopsy studies have opened new investigational avenues towards the detection and prognostication of cancer progression and responses to therapy.

Prof. Dr. Dario Marchetti
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 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.

Keywords

  • liquid biopsy
  • circulating tumor cells (CTCs)
  • ctDNA testing
  • exosomes
  • blood analytes

Published Papers

This special issue is now open for submission.
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