Introduction

There have been many impactful advances in basic, translational, and clinical cancer research in 2024. An important mission of Cancer Discovery is to ensure the timely dissemination of innovative ways of thinking that will inspire conceptual and technological advances that move the needle forward for the future of cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. Since Cancer Discovery’s launch, Research Watch (https://aacrjournals.org/cdnews) – in which the Editors spotlight and summarize recently published articles from other journals each week – has been a popular feature of the Journal and a valuable part of its mission to serve the cancer research community. To further engage with the community in a discussion on recent progress in cancer research, the Cancer Discovery Editors asked leading scientists to weigh in on what they thought were the most exciting discoveries of the year. The commentaries below serve to amplify the perspectives of early- and mid-career investigators and showcase the scientific progress that has been made in 2024 and the potential impacts of these advances moving forward in 2025.

We have developped a proximity ligation assay-based detection of mRNA translation initiation complex eIF4F in situ and single-molecule image analysis tools for cellular translation activity monitoring.