The recent finding by Malladi et al. (2016) revealed that latency-competent cancer cells (LCC, stem-like cancer cell) isolated from early stage breast and lung cancers expressed SOX2 and SOX9, which were essential for their survival in host organs under immune surveillance by natural killer cells, and for metastatic outgrowth under permissive conditions by attenuating WNT signaling. Here, SOX2 is linked to lung carcinoma.