Our recent studies have shown an association between survivin and three key stones in the pathogenesis of RA: smoking [32], carriage of HLA-DRB1 antigen [33] and production of the RA-specific autoantibodies, rheumatoid factor (RF) and antibodies to citrullinated peptides (ACPA) [33–35]. The gene discussed is BIRC5; the disease is rheumatoid arthritis.