Breast Cancer Biomarkers and Drug Targets Discoveries Towards a More Personalized Treatment Setting

Submission Deadline: 30 June 2025 View: 73 Submit to Special Issue

Guest Editors

Dr. Sirin A. Adham

Email: sadham@squ.edu.om

Affiliation: Department of Biology, College of Science, Sultan Qaboos University, P.C. 123, P.O. Box 36, Muscat, Oman.

Homepage:

Research Interests: breast cancer, integrin beta 3, chemoresistance, adriamycin, cyclophosphamide

Prof. Dr. Myron Szewczuk

Email: szewczuk@queensu.ca

Affiliation: Department of Biomedical and Molecular Sciences, Queen's University, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada.

Homepage: URL: https://dbms.queensu.ca/faculty/myron-r-szewczuk

Summary

Despite the advanced therapeutics and enhanced overall survival of breast cancer patients, the mortality rate due to the disease has been increasing over the past few years. Breast cancer tumor genetics and epigenetics research is growing due to advanced genomics and spatial biology technologies and tools. The tumor's genetic/epigenetic makeup cannot only reflect the subtype of breast cancer but also can be correlated to the overall status of the patient's characteristics and lifestyle and any other disease or risk factor. With bioinformatics and big data repositories, we have found specific gene mutations that can correlate with the patients' older or younger age, such as the famous p53 mutation and PIK3CA mutations. Therefore, molecular pathology is having a big impact on the way cancer is diagnosed and treated. Traditionally, hormone receptor biomarkers ER, PR, and HER-2 were the first to be used in any pathology testing; however, more biomarkers for breast cancer were validated using laboratory studies; some got into clinical use; a successful example is the drug Alpelisib small molecule inhibitor that targets the PIK3CA-mutated breast cancer. Olaparib is another drug that was developed to treat patients with metastatic HER2- and BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutated breast cancer tumors. Pembrolizumab is a type of immunotherapy, an anti-programmed death receptor ligand 1 (PD-1) monoclonal antibody; PD1/PDL1 inhibitors were used in the treatment of triple-negative breast cancer TNBC and showed better survival and response to chemotherapy. This issue will focus on all the up-to-date studies that show advanced research using the newest genetic and epigenetic biomarkers to advance the choice of breast cancer drug targets. The issue will open to original research articles and reviews involving translational and clinical cancer research around but not limited to the following topics: 

Aberrant Sialic Acid Expression and Its Role In Regulating Metastasis in Breast Cancer

Epigenetic Biomarkers Regulating Metastasis in Breast Cancer

Contemporaneous Perioperative Inflammatory and Angiogenic Cytokine Profiles of Surgical Breast Cancer Patients: Clinical Implications. 

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