Cancer researchers at Herston have found a way to explore a vast and once largely overlooked part of human DNA, uncovering almost 95,000 previously unannotated molecules that could provide new clues about how cancers behave.
The QIMR Berghofer-led research could eventually help scientists identify new ways to detect or target cancer, although the discoveries now need extensive laboratory investigation.
The team examined 13 cancer types, including breast, brain, bowel and skin cancers, looking for molecules known as long non-coding RNAs, or lncRNAs.
In all, researchers identified 219,442 potential lncRNAs. When compared with existing databases, 94,795 were previously unannotated.
Their findings have been published in Nature Methods and gathered into an online atlas that scientists around the world can now explore.
Why scientists are looking beyond our best-known genes
For decades, much of genetics focused on the small portion of our genome containing instructions for making proteins. Much of the remainder was once loosely dismissed as “junk DNA”.
That view has changed dramatically.
Scientists now know that some of this genetic territory has important functions. Long non-coding RNAs, for example, can help regulate genes and processes within cells, potentially making them useful clues when researchers are trying to understand what is happening inside a tumour.
They have also been notoriously difficult to study. Some occur only in tiny quantities or in very particular cells.
Using advanced tissue-analysis technologies alongside computational and mathematical modelling, the QIMR Berghofer-led team was able to find the molecules and examine where they appeared within cancer tissue.
That gives researchers clues about which molecules may be biologically important and worth investigating further.
Thousands of leads, but a long road ahead
The researchers have made their findings available through an interactive atlas called SPanC-Lnc, effectively giving cancer scientists a new map of this relatively unexplored territory.
Associate Professor Quan Nguyen, director of QIMR Berghofer’s National Centre for Spatial Tissue and AI Research, described this part of the genome as a potential “goldmine” for cancer biomarkers and new therapeutic approaches.
First author Dr Prakrithi Pavithra said better understanding the biology behind cancer was important because cancers can behave differently between patients and existing treatments do not work for everyone.
The numbers involved in the new research are striking, but they need some perspective.
The 94,795 previously unannotated lncRNAs are not new cancer treatments. They are leads that researchers can now investigate, with laboratory experiments needed to establish which molecules have important functions and whether any could ultimately prove useful in diagnosing or treating cancer.
Members of the QIMR Berghofer team have also contributed to separate research involving an lncRNA associated with the most common form of breast cancer, which is being investigated as the basis for a potential RNA-based therapy.
For now, the significance of the new work is the scale of the territory it has opened up. What scientists once struggled even to see inside cancer tissue can increasingly be mapped cell by cell, giving researchers thousands of new places to start looking.
Published 5-Sept-2026
