The CCN Proteins are thought to play key roles in the biology of normal cell, tissue, organ, and body, and altered expression of CCN proteins is associated with several pathologies, including fibrosis and cancer. Because of its importance, the CCN field is expanding at a fast pace. Research articles in this field have recently increased logarithmically, and a book that is up-to-date, comprehensive, authoritative and affords insights into the biological roles of CCN proteins, is timely.CCN Protein: A New Family of Cell Growth and Differentiation Regulators presents the most recent progress in the field of CCN proteins, a new family of secretory signaling molecules that are involved in several fundamental biological progress. These proteins share a unique multimodular organization and present a partial identity with four families of regulatory proteins controling growth and development. The book covers the roles of CCN proteins in the control of cell proliferation and differentiation during normal development, wound repair, chondrogenesis and bone development, angiogenesis, tissue regeneration, fibrosis, renal diseases and cancer development.

Resistance to therapies, both targeted and systemic, and metastases to distant organs are the underlying causes of breast cancer-associated mortality. The second edition of Breast Cancer Metastasis and Drug Resistance brings together some of the leading experts to comprehensively understand breast cancer: the factors that make it lethal, and current research and clinical progress. This volume covers the following core topics: basic understanding of breast cancer (statistics, epidemiology, racial disparity and heterogeneity), metastasis and drug resistance (bone metastasis, trastuzumab resistance, tamoxifen resistance and novel therapeutic targets, including non-coding RNAs, inflammatory cytokines, cancer stem cells, ubiquitin ligases, tumor microenvironment and signaling pathways such as TRAIL, JAK-STAT and mTOR) and recent developments in the field (epigenetic regulation, microRNAs-mediated regulation, novel therapies and the clinically relevant 3D models). Experts also discuss the advances in laboratory research along with their translational and clinical implications with an overarching goal to improve the diagnosis and prognosis, particularly that of breast cancer patients with advanced disease.

The identification of the role of tumor stroma—the tissue in the surroundings of cancer cells—in cancer development, progression, and metastasis has revolutionized the fields of cancer biology as well as cancer therapeutics. This book provides a comprehensive overview of this rapidly-evolving field including tumor stroma biology, therapeutic targets, molecular imaging, and advanced tumor stroma in vitro models. The book will serve as a handbook for graduate students, postgraduate researchers, pharmaceutical scientists, and biomedical engineers.

Most cancer deaths are a result of metastasis. The spread of a primary tumor to colonize neighboring and distant organs is the relentless endgame that defines the neoplastic process. Patients who have been diagnosed with cancer are treated to prevent both the recurrence of the tumor at the site of origin and metastasis that would re-stage them as advanced stage IV cancer. Historically and still with some types of cancer, stage IV is perceived by patients as “terminal.” Fortunately, recent molecular therapies have extended the lives of patients with advanced cancer and reassuringly people living with metastatic disease increasingly visit our clinics. What is the path forward? Given that the consilience of science and medicine is a dynamic art from which therapies arise, it would be misguided to consider any single work adequate at capturing the horizon for research. So with humility we constructed this text as primer for scientists. It begins with a broad introduction to the clinical management of common cancers. This is intended to serve as a foundation for investigators to consider when developing basic science hypotheses. Unquestionably, medical and surgical care of cancer patients reveals biology and dictates how novel therapeutics will ultimately be evaluated in clinical trials. The second section of this text offers provocative and evolving insights that underscore the breadth of science involved in the elucidation of cancer metastasis biology. The text concludes with information that integrates scientific and clinical foundations to highlight translational research. This book serves as a framework for scientists to conceptualize clinical and translational knowledge on the complexity of disease that is metastatic cancer.

Cutting-edge investigators review the current status of the entire field, from the biology of MMPs through the current clinical studies. The authors include many leading scientists from pharmaceutical companies who present all the latest concepts and results on the preferred design strategies for MMP inhibitors, their molecular mechanisms, and their substrates. In addition, they fully describe their personal research on specific MMP inhibitors, detailing vanguard design strategies, their in vitro activity, the outcome of animal model studies and, where available, their toxicology, safety, efficacy in human clinical trials. Comprehensive and state-of-the-art, Matrix Metalloproteinase Inhibitors in Cancer Therapy offers basic and clinical investigators alike a richly informative summary of all the latest research on these powerful new drugs, and their high promise as emerging cancer therapeutics.