The rare mutations detected in human cancer cell lines and in patients with therapy-related acute myeloid leukaemia do not drive tumourigenesis per se, but can do so upon somatic loss of a negative regulator of Raf-mediated MEK/ERK activation, the Raf kinase inhibitory protein RKIP (Niault and Baccarini, 2010). Here, PEBP1 is linked to acute myeloid leukemia.