Examples include resistance to TKIs targeting breakpoint cluster region-abelson tyrosine kinase (BCR-ABL) fusion in chronic myelogenous leukaemia (Gorre et al., 2001, Shah et al., 2002), EGFR in nonsmall cell lung cancer (Kobayashi et al., 2005, Pao et al., 2005), platelet-derived growth factor receptor (PDGFR) in hypereosinophilic syndrome (Cools et al., 2003), KIT in gastrointestinal stromal tumours (Tamborini et al., 2006) and echinoderm microtubule-associated protein-like 4-anaplastic lymphoma kinase (EML4-ALK) fusion in lung cancer (Choi et al., 2010b). The gene discussed is ALK; the disease is gastrointestinal stromal tumor.