BIRC5 and cancer: It is remarkable that mounting preclinical and clinical evidence has linked aberrant activation of WNT/β-catenin signaling to the genesis, progression, stemness maintenance, and drug resistance of a broad spectrum of human cancers, particularly CRC, where over 90% of CRC patients carry activating or loss-of-function mutations in genes of at least one component of the WNT/β-catenin signaling pathway, leading to induced transcription of WNT target genes such as survivin [10,41].