As one of the most common and fatal forms of hematopoietic malignancies, acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) is frequently associated with diverse chromosome translocations (for example t(11q23)/MLL-rearrangements, t(15;17)/PML-RARA and t(8;21)/AML1-ETO) and molecular abnormalities (for example, internal tandem duplications of FLT3 (FLT3-ITD) and mutations in nucleophosmin (NPM1c+))1. The gene discussed is NPM1; the disease is acute myeloid leukemia.