Frontiers in Cancer and Haematology: Emerging Biomarkers, Therapeutics, and Technologies

Cancer‍‌ continues to be the leading cause of death globally. This paper discusses the major advances in liquid biopsy, cancer microenvironment biology, AI, and nanomedicine for the period 2015-2025 and their translational implications. Original articles, systematic reviews, and top-quality review articles on PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science were searched for biomarker development, microenvironment-targeted therapeutics, data-driven decision support, and nanoparticle-based delivery systems. Liquid biopsy (circulating tumor DNA, circulating tumor cells, extracellular vesicles) has the potential to identify minimal residual disease and help select targeted therapies, but issues with analytical sensitivity, pre-analytical variability, and assay standardisation still need to be resolved. The roles of stromal cells, immunological infiltrates, and extracellular matrix in disease progression and therapeutic resistance make them very attractive yet still untested targets. Artificial intelligence applied to multimodal data has the potential to assist in diagnosis and prognosis; however, it requires external validation, transparency, and bias mitigation before routine clinical use. Nanomedicine comes with advanced features such as targeting and multimodal therapy; however, it encounters challenges related to manufacturing, pharmacokinetics, and regulatory standards. To make breakthroughs in the clinic, assay standardisation, prospective multicentre validation, biomarker-driven trial design, and interdisciplinary collaborations are ‍‌imperative.