One of the emerging oncogenic signalling molecules is an intracellular protein kinase, the T‐lymphokine‐activated killer cell‐originated protein kinase (https://www.guidetopharmacology.org/GRAC/FamilyDisplayForward?familyId=633; also known as PDZ binding kinase, PBK), which has been implicated in the development and progression of gastric (Ohashi et al., 2017) and ovarian cancers (Ikeda et al., 2016), oesophageal squamous cell carcinomas (Ohashi et al., 2016), and colorectal cancer (Zlobec et al., 2010). This evidence concerns the gene PBK and colorectal cancer.