STAT3 and gastric cancer: From the list of TFs strongly associated with CSC phenotype in GC and CRC, STAT3 became crucial as a molecular target for cancer therapy because napabucasin (BBI608), the first-in-class cancer stemness (CSCs) inhibitor that works by targeting STAT3, effectively blocks cancer relapse and metastasis in xenografted human cancers (Li Y. et al., 2015; Zhang Y. et al., 2016).