LAUSR

Resistance to therapy is an important issue in the treatment of cancer, responsible for many cancer-related deaths. Despites decades of research into overcoming this resistance, only modest advances have been made and the resistance mechanisms remain poorly understood. Although to date the most studied noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) are miRNAs, the importance of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) in cancer is increasingly being recognized. Here we summarize the roles of miRNAs and lncRNAs in cancer, with a focus on the recently identified novel mechanisms of action, and discuss the current strategies in designing ncRNA-targeting therapeutics, as well as the associated challenges. We are further presenting a novel strategy to identify new therapeutic ncRNA targets by using Chomsky-type grammars based on combinatorial use of coding and noncoding RNAs. Citation Format: George A. Calin. About Chomsky, patterns, and noncoding RNAs cancer therapeutics [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr SY32-04. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-SY32-04