Genome-wide expression profiling of Heme Oxygenase-1 expressing versus HO-1 silenced BeWo choriocarcinoma cells as well as a comparative meta-profiling of the preexisting expression database of 190 human tumors of 14 independent cancer types led to the identification of 14 genes, the expression of which correlated strongly and universally with that of HO-1 (P = 0.00002). The gene discussed is HMOX1; the disease is cancer.