Guest Editor of special issue of the International Journal of Molecular Sciences is Dr. Miroslav Chovanec

Special Issue of the International Journal of Molecular Sciences (IJMS) is focused on „Genome Maintenance and Cancer“. Editor of this Special Issue is Dr. Miroslav Chovanec, PhD., Scientific Director of the Cancer Research Institute, Biomedical Research Center of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, expert in the field of cancer research with a focus on DNA damage response and repair in cancer, cancer biomarkers, targeted and personalized treatment and others. This Special Issue belongs to the section “Molecular Genetics and Genomics“.

Are you professionally focused on this research area? Do not hesitate and submit original research or review articles to this Special Issue which addresses the latest progress and current understanding of the role of DNA damage response and repair in cancer.

For many decades, genome instability has been recognized as a driving force for the development of cancer, and DNA repair systems as crucial factors ensuring the maintenance of genome stability and prevention of cancer. However, these systems also represent cancer treatment obstacles, particularly in the case of using treatment regimens for which the primary pharmacological target is a DNA molecule. Understandably, DNA repair inhibitors, either alone or in combination, are highly promising anti-cancer tools necessary for achieving higher curability and longer survival rates. Historically, DNA repair inhibitors (natural or small molecules, epigenetic changes by CpG methylation and miRNA, etc.) have most often been used within a synthetic lethality approach, where they target cancer cells defective in specific DNA repair system(s). Therefore, comprehensive information on the DNA repair efficiency of cancer cells has a strong prognostic and predictive value. Genome instability and the mutation burden in these cancer cells may also have such a value and be targeted in treatment. Collectively, DNA damage response and repair pathways are promising cancer biomarkers with high potential for use in personalized treatment approaches.

Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Role of genome instability in cancer
• Prognostic value of genome instability
• Use of DNA repair inhibitors in cancer treatment
• Role of DNA repair variants in cancer incidence and treatment
• Synthetic lethality based on the use of DNA repair inhibitors
• Targeting of DNA repair by miRNA
• Loss of DNA repair in cancer
• Drug targeting of genome instability in cancer
• DNA repair biomarkers
• Role of genome instability and DNA repair in tumour mutation load

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2021.

Information about sending the manuscript on the magazine’s website

International Journal of Molecular Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access journal providing an advanced forum for biochemistry, molecular and cell biology, molecular biophysics, molecular medicine, and all aspects of molecular research in chemistry.

Photo: https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/21