BIRC5 and ovarian cancer: 17β-estradiol-induced ER activation was shown to trigger survivin expression in ovarian cancer cells whereas targeting the ER signaling pathway by tamoxifen was shown to down-regulate survivin expression, leading to the induction of cell death in human hepatoblastoma and colorectal cancer cells (Guo et al., 2010; Morad et al., 2012; Zhu et al., 2012).