Over a dozen previous publications have reported that MELK is a cancer dependency, as blocking MELK with RNAi or small molecules inhibited the proliferation of cell lines derived from multiple tumor types (Gray et al., 2005; Lin et al., 2007; Kuner et al., 2013; Du et al., 2014; Kig et al., 2013; Speers et al., 2016; Alachkar et al., 2014; Marie et al., 2008; Nakano et al., 2008; Hebbard et al., 2010; Wang et al., 2014; Choi et al., 2011; Xia et al., 2016; Gu et al., 2013). Here, MELK is linked to cancer.