Using MicroRNAs for Cancer Detection

It's very much early days for researchers and drug developers trying to tap the potential of microRNAs, the small snippets of nucleotides once considered genomic junk. But miRNAs may have a direct use as cancer biomarkers--a diagnostic application where the complex issue of correlating expression and protein function is less daunting. In a paper in PNAS this summer, researchers provide proof of concept for the use of miRNAs as blood-based markers for cancer detection.