Cancer Biomarkers: Reflection on Recent Progress, Emerging Innovations, and the Clinical Horizon.

This perspective provides a short overview of cancer biomarkers, balancing the technical details with the broad implications for biomarker discovery and innovation; early detection and screening; personalized treatment and monitoring; and emerging technologies. It also briefly discusses challenges in their clinical translation while exploring recent advancements and future implications for clinical practice. Finally, we offer thoughts on the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in biomarker development. AI is accelerating the discovery and validation of biomarkers by mining complex datasets, identifying hidden patterns, and improving the predictive accuracy. AI-powered tools enhance image-based diagnostics, automate genomic interpretation, and facilitate real-time monitoring of treatment responses. By integrating multi-omics data, AI offers new avenues for precision medicine and scalable cancer diagnostics, pushing biomarker development into a new era of intelligent, data-driven oncology. This editorial is a reflection on the state of biomarkers based on the contributions to the Special Issue "Cancer Biomarkers: Recent Progress, Innovations, and Future Clinical Implications".