Abstract
The ever-emerging developments and innovations on the advanced translational strategies for diagnosing and treating fatal human diseases are substantially re-shaping our future and improving the human health quality. This special issue published several mini-review manuscripts covering fundamental principles, techniques, devices and applications in the related fields. Several investigators including basic research scientists and medical doctors have described recent breakthroughs in the fields of cancer therapy, biomedical engineering, material sciences and their translational medicine from-bench-to-bed into clinical uses.
The ever-emerging developments and innovations on the advanced translational strategies for diagnosing and treating fatal human diseases are substantially re-shaping our future and improving the human health quality. Compared to traditional approaches (including medical imaging, biopsy, surgery, chemo- and radiotherapy, etc.), early-stage molecular diagnosis with trace bio-specimen, real-time detection by visualized medical technologies, cutting-edge surgical robots with precision manipulations, remotely-controlled telemedicine and artificial intelligence (AI)-aided lesion determination have affected revolutionary influences to current medical modalities and future perspectives.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 taught us another lesson on our understanding of the importance and necessity to upgrade our capability to prevent and cope with infectious diseases. Accessible test, fast diagnosis, prompt vaccine development and efficacious patient treatment along with restrict disease control will definitely lead to a successful fight against COVID-19 outbreak and recovery back to normal status of the whole society. During this process, we have witnessed actual and vast translations and clinical applications of versatile advanced strategies, which further encourages us to propose this special issue.
Several mini-review manuscripts have been published in this collection among which fundamental principles, techniques, devices and applications have been broadly discussed. Researchers focused on the noninvasive treatments of diseases in central nervous systems (CNS). Bozinov reported recent advances of laser interstitial thermal therapy in gliomas. De Almeida Bastos et al. further put the emphasis on the laser interstitial thermal therapy in the treatment of brain metastases and radiation necrosis. Hu et al. summarized the imaging of intratumoral heterogeneity in high-grade gliomas, and Zhang et al. featured the latest advancements of glioblastoma precision therapy as well as its bright outlook from bench to clinic translations. Besides that, Chen told a full story on the organoid models in lung regeneration and cancers. Balier analyzed the advances in image enhancement for sarcoma surgery. Hu shared their experiences on the percutaneous vertebral augmentation procedures in the management of spinal metastases.
As for the advanced analytical techniques, Dr. Weller wrote a review on the topic of liquid biopsies for diagnosing and monitoring primary tumors of the central nervous system. Dr. Baker summarized state-of-the-art developments of biofluid diagnosis by FTIR spectroscopy as a platform technology for cancer detections.
In the past decades, a variety of functional biomaterials from macro-, micro-to nano-dimensional scales have been playing an active role in the diagnostic modality and disease-oriented treatments. To highlight their roaring importance in medicine, Chen et al. worked out with a summary on the choice of anti-tumor strategies based on micro-molecules or drug loading function of biomaterials. As a specific utility in ultrasound imaging, Dr. Liu sum up their own research and provide a comprehensive discussion on the ultrasound-mediated diagnostic imaging and advanced treatments with multifunctional micro/nanobubbles. Dr. Beccaria focused on the ultrasound-induced blood-brain barrier (BBB) disruptions and the clinical treatments for gliomas and other primary CNS tumors.
In conclusion, several investigators including basic research scientists and medical doctors submitted their articles describing recent breakthroughs in the fields of cancer therapy, biomedical engineering, material sciences and their translational medicine. These researchers within a transdisciplinary community shared this collection on the hot topics of noninvasive treatment strategies, theranostic solutions on fatal diseases including cancers and brain diseases, new-generation analytical devices for enhanced diagnosis and precision treatment and from-bench-to-bed medical translations into clinical uses. It is believed that these valuable contributions will also shed inspirations to the industrial for their innovative medical equipment that serves our healthcare and disease treatments better in the coming decades especially in the era of embracing advanced translational evolutions.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Biography
Dr. Zhe Liu is currently a professor in Academy of Medical Engineering and Translational Medicine, Tianjin University, China. His research interests focus on the developments of novel functional biomaterials for controlled drug delivery, medical imaging, tissue engineering, regenerative medicine and noninvasive treatments as advanced translational strategies.
Dr. Liu received his BSc from Sichuan University, China in 2001, and acquired PhD in the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ICCAS) in 2007. He then joined the Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford (MIPS) at Stanford University for his postdoctoral research on developments of novel PET imaging tracers for early detection of breast cancer and melanomas between 2007 and 2008. In early 2009, he moved to Helmholtz Institute for Biological Engineering in University of Aachen (RWTH, Germany) and started the research on nanomedicine and polymeric theranostic biomaterials as contrast agents of ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging. Since early 2014, Dr. Liu built up the Lab of Bio-Imaging and Translational Medicine (LBITM) in Wenzhou Institute of Biomaterials and Engineering (WIBE), Chinese Academy of Sciences and became a leading principle investigator (PI) on the innovations of multifunctional micro-/nano-biomaterials for imaging, drug delivery and therapy of fatal vascular diseases. In late 2018, he received a full professorship and joined Academy of Medical Engineering and Translational Medicine, School of Medicine, Tianjin University.
Dr. Liu has published over 30 research papers and review articles on the scientific journals, and has claimed more than 20 Chinese and international patents in the last five years. He also contributed 2 English scientific books as a chief-editor with Springer-Nature. He is a member of Radiology Society of North America (RSNA), World Molecular Imaging Society (WMIS), China Anti-Cancer Association (CACA), Chinese Medical Doctor Association (CMDA), Chinese Society of Biomedical Engineering (CSBME) and Chinese Chemical Society (CCS).