These cognates of inflammation are recapitulated in hopTum mutants where ectopic STAT activation drives hemocyte proliferation (Luo et al, 1997), the activation of plasmatocytes to generate lamellocytes (Kwon et al, 2008; Stofanko et al, 2010), and the aggregation and local accumulation of lamellocytes in melanotic tumours (Fig 1B). The gene discussed is SOAT1; the disease is neoplasm.