Molecular and Cellular Mechanisms of Human Astrocytoma Progression: Advances in Knowledge to Reach Therapeutic Horizons

Human astrocytic tumors are primary central nervous system (CNS) tumors that arise either
from astrocytes or from precursor cells. A growing number of epidemiological and incidence studies
in dierent countries underlined that, in addition to increasing economic costs for health systems,
these cancers are still representing one of the main hurdles in developing a successful therapeutic
goal for patients. On the other hand, new-omics technologies are oering customized instruments
and more and more advantageous results toward personalized medicine approaches, underlining
the concept that each tumor mass undergoes a peculiar transformation process under the control of
specific genes’ and proteins’ functional signatures. The main aim of this Special Issue was to collect
novel contributions in the wide field of human tumor astrocytic basic and translational research, to
suggest further potential therapeutic targets/strategies that might interfere, possibly at the earliest
stage of transformation, with the tumor progression, and to increase the molecular-based arsenal to
counteract the prognostic poverty of high-grade astrocytic tumors.