Oncology Experts Preview Abstracts to Watch at the 2026 AACR Annual Meeting

As the 2026 AACR Annual Meeting gets into full swing, OncLive® asked key researchers for intel on the presentations and conversations at the top of their lists. We gathered exclusive insights from:

• Paula R. Pohlmann, MD, MSc, PhD, a professor in the Department of Breast Medical Oncology and the Department of Investigational Cancer Therapeutics in the Division of Cancer Medicine at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston
• Timothy Shaw, PhD, an assistant member (professor) in Bioinformatics and a computational biologist at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida
• Lillian L. Siu, MD, FRCPC, a professor at the University of Toronto; as well as a medical oncologist, co-director of the Phase I Clinical Trials Program, the BMO Financial Group Chair in Precision Genomics, and the scientific lead of the Peter Gilgan Centre for Early Cancer Detection Research at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Canada

“AACR 2026 will be full of great science and clinical findings that highlight the progress cancer research is making for patients,” Siu emphasized. “This is just a small sampling of the outstanding research that will be shared. I am looking forward to an enlightening and productive week in San Diego, [California].”

Read on for a glimpse at studies you should keep an eye on, as well as how their results might propel forward into the future of cancer research!

CT013 - Whole-exome sequencing tumor-informed circulating tumor DNA detection after completion of neoadjuvant treatment predicts non-pCR and distant recurrence in patients with early triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) — Results from a sub-study of the NSABP B-59/GBG-96-GeparDouze Trial

Session time: Saturday, April 18, 2026, 12:30pm-2:30pm PT

Pohlmann: At the 2025 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, a substudy of the phase 3 NSABP B‑59/GBG-96-GeparDouze MRD trial [NCT03281954] showed that whole exome–based, tumor‑informed circulating tumor DNA [(ctDNA) testing with the Oncodetect assay] can reveal persistent disease after neoadjuvant therapy in early-stage TNBC, even when pathology suggests otherwise. Similar signals have previously emerged across the phase 2 I‑SPY2 [NCT01042379] trial, the observational TBCRC‑040/PREDICT‑DNA [NCT02743910] trial, [studies investigating the] TARDIS [assay]; each [of these studies has used] different highly sensitive ctDNA platforms.

In the prior NSABP B‑59 analysis, with 37 months of [median] follow‑up, patients who remained ctDNA positive after surgery had a 78% distant recurrence rate, compared with 5% among ctDNA‑negative patients.¹ [Additionally,] ctDNA refined risk within both pathologic complete response [pCR] and non‑pCR groups, reinforcing that pCR alone is no longer sufficient to define residual risk.

At [AACR 2026], we’ll see updated results from this whole exome sequencing–based approach. If these findings continue to hold, post‑neoadjuvant trial design must evolve and incorporate minimal residual disease testing to define risk and guide treatment. The moment to modernize risk assessment and treatment selection beyond pCR may be arriving faster than expected.

CT020 - Safety and efficacy of Elisrasib (D3S-001), a next generation GDP-bound KRAS G12C inhibitor, as monotherapy in advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) previously treated with or without a KRAS G12C inhibitor: Results from a phase 1/2 study

CT021 - Preliminary safety and clinical activity of zoldonrasib (RMC-9805), an oral, RAS(ON) G12D-selective, tri-complex inhibitor in patients with previously treated KRAS G12D non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC)

Session time: Sunday, April 19, 2026, 1pm-3pm PT

Siu: In our first clinical trials plenary session on Sunday afternoon, we will hear important updates about the current state of KRAS inhibitors in [the management of] lung cancer. Byoung Chul Cho, [MD, PhD, of Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea] will present results from a phase 1/2 trial [NCT05410145] testing the next-generation KRAS G12C inhibitor elisrasib in both KRAS G12C inhibitor–naive and –refractory advanced NSCLC.

Jonathan Riess, [MD, MS, of the University of California Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center], will present results from a phase 1 trial [NCT06040541] testing the first-in-class RAS(ON) G12D inhibitor zoldonrasib in patients with previously treated KRAS G12D-mutant NSCLC. KRAS inhibitors hold tremendous promise for patients, which is remarkable considering that KRAS was thought to be ‘undruggable’ until just a few years ago, so I am excited to see these results.

CT022 - First data disclosure of the Phase I trial of the first in class combination of WEE1 inhibitor zedoresertib with PKMYT1 inhibitor lunresertib in patients with advanced solid tumors harboring CCNE1, FBXW7, or PPP2R1A genomic alterations

Session time: Sunday, April 19, 2026, 1pm-3pm PT

Pohlmann: One of the most anticipated early‑phase trials to be reported firsthand at the meeting is abstract CT022. This will be the first clinical experience report with the combination of zedoresertib [Debio 0123]—a WEE1 inhibitor—and lunresertib [RP-6306]—a PKMYT1 inhibitor—as treatment for patients with refractory solid malignancies harboring CCNE1, FBXW7, or PPP2R1A genomic alterations.

The combination therapy was designed to collapse the G2/M checkpoint in cancers addicted to replication stress. Preclinical studies showed that dual WEE1/PKMYT1 inhibition produces rapid, deep tumor regressions, far beyond what either agent achieves alone.

The field has been waiting for this. [These data presented at] AACR 2026 will tell us whether biology translates to clinical benefit.

9 / 9 - ShinyEvents: Harmonizing real-world longitudinal data for clinical insights and survival analytics

Session time: Sunday, April 19, 2026, 2:00pm-5:00pm PT

Shaw: Alyssa Obermayer from my lab developed ShinyEvents, a tool for visualizing structured or unstructured, real-world longitudinal data. By loading the AACR Project GENIE—a large-scale community effort of harmonizing certain genetic data variants—we can [use ShinyEvents to] harmonize the treatment information and then associate with those genetics if the community feel it's useful. One of the key features [of] our tool is after harmonizing the treatment information, we can use any treatment change or other relapse information to associate with treatment-associated progression-free survival. By doing so, now we can evaluate whether a specific treatment can be associated with a certain biomarker, such as a genetic variant. This will be of interest to the computational community, or even to clinicians who might be willing to try the tool and look at the clinical data that are associated with AACR Project GENIE. [Findings from] our study were recently published in NPJ Precision Oncology.²

CT037 - A first-in-human phase 1 trial of a novel claudin 6 (CLDN6)-targeting antibody drug conjugate (ADC) QLS5132 in patients (pts) with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer (PROC)

Session time: Sunday, April 19, 2026, 3:30pm-5:30pm PT

Siu: Tao Zhu, [PhD, of Zhejiang Cancer Hospital in Hangzhou, China], will present a first-in-human phase 1 trial [NCT06932094] of a novel CLDN6-targeting ADC in patients with PROC. Patients diagnosed with PROC have poor prognoses and limited treatment options. I am eager to hear whether this next-generation ADC may expand therapeutic possibilities for these patients.

CT103 - Ciltacabtagene autoleucel in high-risk smoldering myeloma: Results from the CAR-PRISM trial

Session time: Monday, April 20, 2026, 10:15am-12:15pm PT

Siu: I am also intrigued by the studies focused on cancer interception, such as the phase 2 CAR-PRISM trial [NCT05767359] that will be presented by Omar Nadeem, [MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts]. CAR T-cell therapy has demonstrated extraordinary efficacy in [managing] hematologic malignancies. It will be interesting to learn whether it will also work to prevent the progression of precancer.

SY01 - Presidential Select Symposium. Targeting Stage 0: Precision-Based Prevention

Session time: Monday, April 20, 2026, 10:15am-11:45am PT

Siu: I am excited by the promise of cancer interception and precision prevention, which is why the Presidential Select Symposium this year will explore these topics. The session will feature the latest information on factors that are critical to achieving precision prevention, including genomics, data science, and immune-based strategies, all of which could be applied to high-risk cohorts for effective interception.

3999 - Pan-cancer prediction of response to immune checkpoint blockade from histopathology

Session time: Monday, April 20, 2026, 2:30pm-4:30pm PT

Shaw: This computational biology group has a strategy to leverage H&E slides. They developed a model called TIME_ACT for predicting immunotherapy response. The way they did this is clever because they first converted those slides into gene expression data through an algorithm called Path2Omics, a framework capable of inferring transcriptome-wide gene expression from H&E whole-slide images. Through that conversion process, they created a machine-learning model to identify the 66 genes that are associated with tumor immune activation. This is an exciting direction because now we can leverage H&E slides and provide guidance [about] why we think there is an immunotherapy response in certain patients.

6742 - Nonsense-mediated mRNA decay inhibition augments in vitro, in vivo, and ex vivo anti-tumor immunity

Session time: Tuesday, April 21, 2026, 2:30pm-4:30pm PT

Shaw: This study [led by] Kevin Litchfield, [PhD, of University College London in the UK, findings from which were also] published in Immunity, is describing how nonsense-mediated mRNA decay inhibition, in which they target SMG1, provides a strategy to turn down the nonsense-mediated decay pathway, and then facilitate the on-tap source of immunogenic peptides to get expressed.³ These include nuORFs and other noncanonical peptides that are typically degraded. Now all these immunogenic peptides can be expressed, which in the paper, was associated with better outcomes and better antitumor killing. I thought this was interesting because there's a lot of interest in the dark matter of neoantigens of the cancer, in which we can leverage [aspects of] the immune system to become better killers.

References

1. Balic M, Tang G, Young, G, et al. Evaluation of a whole-exome sequencing tumor-informed circulating tumor DNA MRD assay in patients with early triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) with or without atezolizumab: A prospective sub study of the NSABP-B59/GBG-96-GeparDouze Trial. Presented at: San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; December 9-12, 2025; San Antonio, TX. Abstract RF4-03.
2. Obermayer A, Davis J, Talada DP, et al. ShinyEvents: harmonizing longitudinal data for real-world survival estimation. NPJ Precis Oncol. 2026;10(1):54. doi:10.1038/s41698-025-01212-0
3. Vendramin R, Fu H, Fernandez Patel S, et al. Nonsense-mediated mRNA decay inhibition reshapes the cancer immunopeptidome. Immunity. Published online April 8, 2026. doi:10.1016/j.immuni.2026.02.005