In keeping with previous reports that aliphatic hydroxamate derivatives elevate p21cip/Waf level and inhibit cancer cell proliferation (Huang et al., 2015; Chuang et al., 2017), we showed that WMJ-J-09 elevates p21cip/Waf levels, which was accompanied by decreased survivin levels, in FaDu and SCC25 cells. The gene discussed is BIRC5; the disease is cancer.