Editorial: Cancer Nanotheranostics: What Have We Learned So Far?

Conde, J. ; Tian, F.R. ; de la Fuente, J.M. (Universidad de Zaragoza) ; Baptista, P.V. ; Baptista, P.

Resumen: According to the National Cancer Institute, in 2015 an estimated of 1.7 million new cases of cancer will be diagnosed only in the United States and around 600, 000 people will die from the disease. The most common type of cancer is breast cancer, with more than 234, 000 new cases expected in the United States in 2015. The next most common cancers are prostate cancer and lung cancer.After a quarter of century of rapid technological advances, research has revealed the complexity of cancer, a disease intimately related to the dynamic transformation of the genome. These transformations trigger a range of modification to cell processes and molecular events that initiate and promote tumor genesis and progression, then local invasion and metastasis, i.e., the hallmarks of cancer development. These alterations may cause a wide scope of “diseases” that share similar molecular patterns that cause transformation and malignancy. Each of this stepwise evolution of the initial molecular event drives abnormal growth and loss of differentiation that ultimately causes tissue and organ failure. The initial molecular event may lay within the erroneous expression of a given gene, epigenetic modification and/or sporadic mutations occurring on genomic DNA during the life span of organisms. Each and every one of these molecular events may be evaluated and used as diagnostics biomarker and therapeutic target. For example, therapy action may target a mutated gene and silence its expression so as to avoid erroneous protein expression that mutates cell function. However, the full understanding of the molecular onset of this disease is still far from achieved and the search for mechanisms of treatment will follow closely...

Idioma: Inglés

DOI: 10.3389/fchem.2015.00071

Año: 2016

Publicado en: Frontiers in chemistry 3 (2016), 71 [3 pp]
ISSN: 2296-2646

Factor impacto JCR: 3.994 (2016)

Categ. JCR: CHEMISTRY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY rank: 44 / 166 = 0.265 (2016) - Q2 - T1

Factor impacto SCIMAGO: 0.963 - Chemistry (miscellaneous) (Q1)

Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/FP7/626386/EU/Hydrogel-nanoparticle patches as prophylactic scaffold agents for in vivo local gene/drug delivery in colorectal cancer tumours/CANCERHYDROGELPATCH

Tipo y forma: (Published version)

Área (Departamento): Área Química Orgánica (Dpto. Química Orgánica)