On the one hand, genetic markers based on the oxygen degradation domain or hypoxia-response elements of HIF1α are common (Erapaneedi et al., 2016, Wang et al., 2016), but these may encounter hurdles for interpretation due to the dysregulation of the hypoxic response in many cancers and the necessity to measure changes in intensity, instead of a switch-like response. Here, HIF1A is linked to cancer.