The importance of correct regulation of SETDB1 is underscored by the oncogenic potential of SETDB1 overexpression, with amplification of SETDB1 implicated in the progression of malignant melanoma (Ceol et al., 2011) and cancers of the prostate (Sun et al., 2014), liver (Fei et al., 2015, Wong et al., 2016), and lung (Rodriguez-Paredes et al., 2014, Sun et al., 2015). The gene discussed is SETDB1; the disease is cancer.