The inflammatory cytokine IFN-γ is the best-characterized stimulus for PD-L1 expression, but several studies suggest that cell-intrinsic oncogenic signaling can also promote PD-L1 expression in cancer cells through epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), the transcription factor MYC, and the kinase AKT (Akbay et al., 2013, Casey et al., 2016, Parsa et al., 2007). The gene discussed is AKT1; the disease is cancer.