In the post-genomic era, cancer is a genetic disease. However, cancer genotype does not always equal cancer phenotype. Cancers with the same genetic abnormalities don’t always behave the same. Understanding and eradicating cancers will require an appreciation for cancer’s ecology. This book is the first to comprehensively explore and critically appraise cancer microenvironments and host interactions with an eye towards exploiting our understanding for new treatments. The team of contributors share amongst them impressive experiences at the laboratory bench and in the clinic. These physician-scientists have dedicated themselves to the tension between the urgency for cures and the technical challenges of discovery. The target audience includes clinical oncologists, clinical hematologists, research oncologists, research hematologists, immunologists, stem cell researchers, oncology and hematology fellows (trainees), oncology educators (graduate and undergraduate levels), and course book for graduate students and undergraduate students.

Cancer cells can change and adapt, especially within the host environment; a phenomenon known as cancer plasticity. Several factors, including the immune system can influence, and be influenced by, cancer plasticity which in turn can impact upon patient responses to treatment. As such, we currently face several challenges for implementing combination therapies as effective cancer treatment strategies. We have compiled a topic with a number of articles that emphasize the various aspects of cancer plasticity, describing in particular the important role of the tumor microenvironment. As we embark on a new era of precision medicine with multi-modal therapies for improving patient outcomes, this topic highlights some relevant points for consideration that are pertinent to the incorporation and effective use of new treatments as part of cancer treatment regimens, including immune-modulating drugs.

This book reviews different aspects of the cancer microenvironment, and its regulation and importance for tumor progression. Methodological advancements and practical applications, in terms of how biomarkers are studied and increasingly included in clinical trials and therapy protocols, are described and discussed. Biomarkers of the Tumor Microenvironment is an educational resource for students and members of the cancer research community as a whole, especially for those using morphology analysis techniques and models focusing on the cross-talk between different cell types in tumors. The textbook provides a comprehensive overview of the microenvironment in various contexts from the perspectives of experienced and accomplished cancer researchers and clinicians.

The way a cell undergoes malignant transformation should meet their capacity of surviving in the microenvironment of the organ where the cancer will develop. Metabolic adaptation is for sure one of the criteria that must be accomplished, driven by metabolic plasticity that allows the adaptation of cancer cells to the availability of energy and biomass sources that will sustain cell survival and proliferation. Each human organ has a particular microenvironment which depends on several cell types and in some cases also on symbiotic microorganisms. These biological partners are constantly sharing organic compounds and signaling molecules that will control mitogenesis, cell death and differentiation, accounting for the organ's function. Nevertheless, cancer cells are capable of taking advantage of this metabolic and signaling microenvironmental dynamics. In this book, we intend to present the different components of the microenvironment driving the metabolic fitness of cancer cells. The metabolic changes required for establishing a tumor in a given microenvironment and how these metabolic changes limit the response to drugs will generally be the major items addressed. It is important to mention not only aspects of the microenvironment that stimulate metabolic changes and that select better adapted tumor cells, but also how this regulation of cell plasticity is made. Thus, the signaling pathways that orchestrate and are orchestrated throughout this panoply of metabolic rearrangements will also be addressed in this book. The subjects will be presented from the conceptual point of view of the cross-cancer mechanisms and also particularizing some models that can be examples and enlightening within the different areas.