{"entity":{"id":"paper-wang-orphan-rnas-breast-response-cell-rep-med-2026","kind":"paper","name":"Systematic annotation of orphan RNAs reveals blood-accessible molecular barcodes of cancer identity and cancer-emergent oncogenic drivers","aka":[],"tldr":"A study that catalogued small RNAs made only by tumours and showed that their level in blood before and after chemotherapy tracked how breast cancer patients fared.","summary":"Across 32 tumour types the authors annotated orphan non-coding RNAs. In a retrospective study of 192 breast cancer patients from I-SPY 2, sampled before and after neoadjuvant chemotherapy, the abstract reports that oncRNAs are reliably detected in blood and that changes in cell-free oncRNA burden predict both short-term and long-term outcomes; the full text states that the change remained informative of survival when controlling for pathological complete response or residual cancer burden. The hazard ratios are given only in a figure and are not quoted here. The senior author co-founded Exai Bio.","asOf":"2026-11-04","links":[{"label":"Wang et al., Cell Rep Med 2026","url":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xcrm.2025.102577"},{"label":"PubMed","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41579861/"}],"tags":[],"related":[],"cancers":["breast-cancer"],"sections":["diagnostics"],"technologies":["liquid-rna-biopsy","mrd-testing"],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":["exai-bio"],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":["mrd"],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":["b-subclone-attribution-residual-disease"],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"journal":"Cell Reports Medicine","year":2026,"doi":"10.1016/j.xcrm.2025.102577","pmid":"41579861","authors":"Wang J, Suh JM, Woo BJ, et al.","paperType":"translational","findings":["Change in oncRNA burden predicted short- and long-term outcomes in 192 breast cancer patients.","Remained informative after controlling for pathological response (full text)."],"whatItMeans":"The closest published result to an RNA residual disease test in breast cancer: a burden score that tracks outcome, without a stated detection limit.","caveats":["Retrospective; no limit of detection; survival figures in a figure only.","Conflict of interest: founder authorship."],"participants":192},"route":"/key-papers/paper-wang-orphan-rnas-breast-response-cell-rep-med-2026/","neighbours":{"cancer":[{"id":"breast-cancer","kind":"cancer","name":"Breast cancer (all types)","route":"/cancers/breast-cancer/"}],"section":[{"id":"diagnostics","kind":"section","name":"Diagnostics & Biomarkers","route":"/fronts/diagnostics/"}],"technology":[{"id":"liquid-rna-biopsy","kind":"technology","name":"Liquid RNA biopsy (cell-free, vesicle and platelet RNA)","route":"/technologies/liquid-rna-biopsy/"},{"id":"mrd-testing","kind":"technology","name":"MRD / molecular residual disease testing","route":"/technologies/mrd-testing/"}],"company":[{"id":"exai-bio","kind":"company","name":"Exai Bio","route":"/companies/exai-bio/"}],"term":[{"id":"mrd","kind":"term","name":"Minimal / molecular residual disease (MRD)","route":"/terms/mrd/"}],"bottleneck":[{"id":"b-subclone-attribution-residual-disease","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Naming which clone or phenotype is left after treatment","route":"/bottlenecks/b-subclone-attribution-residual-disease/"}],"idea":[{"id":"idea-stack-ctdna-and-tumour-rna-residual-disease","kind":"idea","name":"Read tumour RNA and tumour DNA from the same blood draw to find and type residual cancer","route":"/ideas/idea-stack-ctdna-and-tumour-rna-residual-disease/"}]}}