Grand Challenges in Skin Cancer Research

Skin cancers, including melanoma, basal cell carcinoma, and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, represent a global and growing health burden, with wide variation in incidence, access to early diagnosis, and treatment outcomes. Despite major advances in prevention messaging, dermoscopic assessment, surgical techniques, systemic therapies, and immuno-oncology, patient benefit remains uneven: high-risk populations are not consistently reached, early lesions are still missed, and therapy resistance and recurrence continue to limit durable control in advanced disease. At the same time, rapid innovation in artificial intelligence, digital health, multi-omics and next-generation sequencing, and minimally invasive monitoring (e.g., liquid biopsy approaches) is reshaping how skin cancer may be detected, stratified, and managed.This Grand Challenges collection brings together forward-looking contributions led by the Specialty Chief Editors to define the most urgent scientific, clinical, and implementation problems in skin cancer research, especially those where progress is slowed by fragmented evidence, lack of validated biomarkers, limited generalizability across diverse populations, or gaps between innovation and real-world care. The goal is to articulate clear roadmaps: what must be understood mechanistically, what must be proven clinically, what standards and datasets are needed, and what trial designs and translational strategies could accelerate impact. By identifying shared bottlenecks across prevention, diagnosis, and therapy, this collection aims to guide the community toward research that is both rigorous and practice-changing, advancing patient outcomes in alignment with SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being).To achieve this, we invite authors to address the following themes and questions, emphasizing evidence-based perspectives and concrete next steps:• Prevention, epidemiology, and risk stratification: unresolved questions in UV exposure, behavioral and policy interventions, high-risk groups, and secondary prevention after treatment.• Early detection and clinical decision support: grand challenges in dermoscopy, imaging, triage, and workflow integration; validation, bias, and deployment of AI/ML tools across settings and populations.• Biomarkers and prediction that change decisions: diagnostic, prognostic, and predictive biomarkers; standards for analytical/clinical validation and clinical utility.• Mechanisms of tumorigenesis, progression, and metastasis: molecular and cellular drivers; the role of cancer stem cells; actionable vulnerabilities.• Tumor microenvironment and immuno-oncology: immune, stromal, and microbial factors; response determinants; mechanisms and solutions for resistance to immunotherapy and targeted therapy.• Translational and precision oncology (beyond profiling): integrative multi-omics with clinical relevance, next-generation sequencing in care pathways, and liquid biopsy/ctDNA opportunities and limitations for monitoring and treatment adaptation.• Therapeutic modalities and combination strategies: surgery, radiation, systemic therapies, and rational combinations; trial design challenges and real-world evidence needs.• Quality of life, survivorship, and implementation: adverse effects, patient-reported outcomes, long-term follow-up, access, and equity in oncologic dermatology.We welcome Perspectives, Reviews, Mini-Reviews, General Commentaries, and invited forward-looking articles, as well as high-impact Original Research and Clinical Trial reports that directly address these challenges. Submissions must be clearly relevant to skin cancer prevention, diagnosis, or treatment; case reports and unvalidated public-dataset-only bioinformatics studies are out of scope.Please note: manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics, computational analysis, or predictions of public databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent clinical or patient cohort, or biological validation in vitro or in vivo, which are not based on public databases) are not suitable for publication in this journal. Topic editors: Vladimir Spiegelman, Mohammad Athar Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/81577/grand-challenges-in-skin-cancer-research