The Frontline of Spatial Biology and Liquid Biopsy at AACR 2026

The Frontline of Spatial Biology and Liquid Biopsy at AACR 2026

New Developments in Cancer Research Powered by Orion and CyteFinder by RareCyte
— Key Insights from AACR 2026 Presentations —

The AACR Annual Meeting, organized by the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), is one of the world’s leading international conferences in cancer research. AACR Annual Meeting 2026 will be held from April 17 to April 22, 2026, at the San Diego Convention Center in California, USA. It is a key venue where the latest achievements across a wide range of fields—including basic research, translational research, and clinical applications—are presented, covering drug discovery, diagnostics, biomarker research, spatial analysis, and AI-driven technologies.

At this global conference, RareCyte supports advancements in cancer research through its spatial biology platform Orion and its circulating tumor cell (CTC) analysis system CyteFinder. At AACR 2026, multiple presentations showcase research utilizing these platforms in areas such as spatial proteomics, tumor microenvironment analysis, AI-based image analysis, liquid biopsy, and treatment response prediction.

This article provides an overview of AACR Annual Meeting 2026 and highlights selected presentations involving RareCyte technologies, illustrating how spatial biology and liquid biopsy are delivering value in modern cancer research.

What is the AACR Annual Meeting?

The AACR Annual Meeting is a global conference that brings together researchers, clinicians, and industry professionals across a broad spectrum of cancer research fields, including tumor biology, immuno-oncology, pathology, drug discovery, diagnostics, biomarker development, and clinical research. In addition to scientific presentations, the meeting features corporate exhibitions and technology showcases, making it an essential opportunity to understand emerging analytical technologies, instruments, reagents, and data analysis solutions.

In recent years, “spatial biology,” which visualizes cellular localization and functional states within tissues, and “liquid biopsy,” which targets rare cells such as circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in blood, have gained increasing importance. Both are critical for understanding tumor heterogeneity, microenvironmental complexity, and treatment response variability that cannot be captured by conventional bulk analysis.

RareCyte’s Technological Positioning at AACR 2026

RareCyte supports both spatial biology and liquid biopsy research through its Orion platform, which enables multiplex fluorescence imaging of tissue sections, and CyteFinder, which allows detection, imaging, and retrieval of rare cells.

Orion’s unmatched 20-channels per round technology uniquely enables the evaluation of spatial relationships among stroma, tumor, and immune cells within tissue microenvironments at a scale consistent with large clinical studies. Meanwhile, CyteFinder specializes in detecting and analyzing circulating tumor cells from blood and other liquid samples, supporting non-invasive biomarker evaluation and treatment monitoring.

The presentations at AACR 2026 demonstrate that RareCyte technologies are not merely instruments but are actively used as analytical platforms addressing real research challenges. Key topics include visualization of immune microenvironments, identification of cancer stem cell niches, immune profiling in clinical trials, AI-driven pathology analysis, and CTC-based treatment response prediction.

Highlighted Presentations: Spatial Biology

Numerous presentations at AACR 2026 utilize spatial biology approaches. For example, studies analyzing the spatiotemporal dynamics of CD44v9 in pancreatic cancer reveal therapy-resistant niches associated with senescent cells. Other research identifies cancer stem cell reservoirs within pancreatic intraepithelial neoplastic spatial niches.

Additional studies combine patient-derived organoid–immune cell co-cultures with spatial biology to support therapeutic strategies targeting CD44v9-positive cancer stem cells. Furthermore, comprehensive immune landscape analyses of solid tumors using 17-plex immunofluorescence assays highlight the importance of evaluating complex tumor microenvironments while preserving spatial information.

Integrative spatial profiling of protein and chromosomal alterations across normal, precancerous, and cancerous tissues provides new insights into early tumorigenesis. These approaches sit at the intersection of pathology, tumor biology, and drug development.

Highlighted Presentations: Liquid Biopsy and CTC Analysis

In the field of liquid biopsy, several presentations focus on circulating tumor cell (CTC) analysis. These include the development of a novel CDH17 CTC assay for monitoring colorectal cancer patients using blood and cerebrospinal fluid, as well as the development of CTC-based biomarker assays to predict response to CDK4/6 inhibitors in HR+/HER2- breast cancer.

These studies demonstrate the practical utility of liquid biopsy in evaluating treatment response and monitoring disease progression with minimal invasiveness. Importantly, CTC analysis provides not only quantitative data but also morphological, fluorescence, and molecular information, offering significant value. RareCyte’s solutions enable both detection and visual confirmation of rare cells.

Integration with AI and Image Analysis

AACR 2026 also highlights the growing integration of spatial biology with AI-driven image analysis. Examples include precision diagnostics for early melanoma detection and computational histology platforms linking morphological features with molecular markers.

These approaches emphasize extracting reproducible quantitative insights from complex imaging data. The integration of spatial analysis and AI is expected to further advance biomarker discovery and patient stratification.

Key RareCyte-Related Presentations

Highlights at the Exhibition Booth

RareCyte is scheduled to exhibit at booth #1823 at AACR 2026. Visitors can explore Orion and CyteFinder, engage in discussions tailored to their research, and gain insights into practical applications in cancer research.

For researchers in immuno-oncology, biomarker discovery, pathology, liquid biopsy, and treatment response prediction, these presentations provide valuable insight into how RareCyte technologies are applied in real-world studies.

Conclusion

The presentations at AACR Annual Meeting 2026 clearly demonstrate that spatial biology and liquid biopsy have become essential analytical approaches in modern cancer research. These technologies are advancing disease understanding and biomarker development.

Orion and CyteFinder represent complementary solutions that support multidimensional data acquisition. Their expanding application range highlights their importance in future research and clinical translation.

Conference Information
Event: AACR Annual Meeting 2026
Dates: April 17–22, 2026
Venue: San Diego Convention Center, California, USA
RareCyte Booth: #1823

This article is based on official information released by RareCyte regarding AACR Annual Meeting 2026.