Recent examples are an IGF1 polymorphism associated with non-small-cell lung cancer (Zhang et al, 2010), an IGF2R polymorphism influencing the risk of oesophageal and gastric cancer (Hoyo et al, 2009), and the detection of a cancer-associated somatic copy number amplification in the IGF1R gene region in a pooled analysis of 26 cancer types, each represented by more than 20 specimens (Beroukhim et al, 2010). The gene discussed is IGF1R; the disease is cancer.