Optical tweezers are a means to manipulate objects with light. Optical tweezers can obtain a nanometer space, piconewton force, and a millisecond resolution; thus, they are excellently suited for studying biological processes from the single-cell to the single-molecule level. Optical tweezers can screen and manipulate tumor cells, study single molecule, and monitor cancer treatments. Thus, optical tweezers will promote the progress of cancer research and treatments.

Cancer phenotypic plasticity includes dedifferentiation, blocked differentiation and trans- differentiation, and differentiation therapy targeting tumor cell plasticity is becoming a new therapeutic model for human cancers. The application of inducing differentiation, initiating differentiation and regulating differentiation in tumor differentiation therapy will promote the directed differentiation of tumor cells into mature cells and the remodeling of phenotypes, thus to achieve the purpose of cancer treatment.

Cytotoxic agents, molecular targeted agents and immune checkpoint inhibitors consist of the fundamental model of cancer systematic treatments. Anti-tumor drugs with new mechanisms of action, including kinase inhibitors, therapeutic antibodies, nucleic acid blocks, therapeutic vaccines, gene-edited immune cells, living microrobots and digital drugs, will change this existing model. Drugs targrting nerves, polysaccharides, lipids and microflora may gradually enter clinical applications.

As one of the typical bioorthogonal chemistry reactions, click chemistry joins molecules similar to “Lego”. Bioorthogonal click chemistry is used to modify cancer cells, design antitumor drugs, delivery drugs, manipulate immune cells, and help preclinical evaluation. Click chemistry provides a promising approach for discovering molecules and targeting cancer in cancer research.

Autophagy is a cellular self-degradation process essential for maintaining metabolic functions in cells and organisms.Dysfunc-tional autophagy has been linked to various diseases,including cancer.The m6A modification,a major RNA modification in eukaryotes,plays a crucial role in regulating autophagy in tumor cells by regulating the expression of autophagy-associated genes(ATGs)or interfering with autophagy-related signaling pathways.Aberrant m6A modification can lead to dysregulated autophagy and impact tumor progression.However,the specific role of m6A in regulating tumor autophagy remains to be explored.Therefore,in this review,we discuss the role of m6A modification in tumor cell autophagy and examine its relationship with tumor progression and drug resistance,aiming to provide a the-oretical foundation for developing new therapeutic strategies.

Cancer cells have a senescence response, and senescence in cancer cells have both tumor-suppressive and tumor-promoting effects. Cancer senotherpy includes pro-senescent cancer therapy, senolytic therapy and senomorphic therapy. However, the efficacy and adverse effects need to be thoroughly studied. Detection of senescence-associated proteins and metabolites within the patients' cancer senescent cells and peripheral blood may help to evaluate the efficacy of senotherapy and guide future clinical trials.

Tumor dormancy refers to the status of disseminated cancer cells that remain in a viable yet not proliferating state for a prolonged period. Dormant cells will eventually "re-awake" resume their proliferation, and produce overt metastasis. The dormancy mechanism of cancer has attracted attention because of the close relationship between late recurrence and tumor dormancy. In this review, we illustrate the latest discoveries on the biological underpinnings of breast cancer dormancy and offer clinicians an overview of dormancy in breast cancer to guide them in the basic understanding of the complexity that underlies this process.

Immune checkpoint consists of inhibitory and stimulatory molecules. Drugs blocking inhibitory checkpoint programmed cell death receptor-1 (PD-1) and cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated molecule-4 (CTLA-4) are currently utilized for wide variety of human cancers. Agonists of stimulatory checkpoints such as GITR, OX40, 4-1BB, ICOS, CD40 and STING are undergoing critical clinical trials. Immune checkpoint agonists that affect stimulatory checkpoint molecules develop rapidly, and immune agonist antibodies thus represent an important approach for solid tumor treatments.

Objective    To reveal and demonstrate the hotspots and further research directions in screening technology for early lung cancer, and provide references for the future studies. Methods    Researches related to lung cancer screening from 2011 to 2021 in the Web of Science database were included. Biblioshiny, a bibliometrics program based on R language, was used to perform content analysis and visualization of the included literature information. Results    Researches related to lung cancer screening were increasing year by year. Six major cooperation groups were formed between countries. The current research hotspots in the field of early lung cancer screening technology mainly focused on the multi-directional fusion of radiographic imaging, liquid biopsy and artificial intelligence. Conclusion    Low-dose spiral CT screening is still the most important and mainstream method for the screening of early lung cancer at present. The combination and integration of artificial intelligence with various screening methods and the innovation of novel testing and diagnostic equipment are the current research hotspots and the future research trend in this field.

Conventional clinical trials of antitumor drugs are conducted at clinical sites. In contrast, without clinical sites or site-less, digital clinical trials can be performed online. Virtual clinical trials analyze the therapeutic response of virtual patients to digital drugs using artificial intelligence and may reduce the costs of trials. Precision oncology trials based on biomarkers can invite more people to join clinical trials and guide the optimal choice of therapeutics for cancer patients. Oncology clinical trials will enter the era of digital, virtual and precision medicine.