Oncogenic activation of USP8 by mutations or chromosomal translocation underlie Cushing’s disease (caused by a pituitary adenoma Ma et al., 2015; Reincke et al., 2015) and leukemia (Janssen et al., 1998), respectively, and USP8 overexpression is associated with poor prognosis of lung and cervical cancer cases (Kim et al., 2017; Yan et al., 2018). The gene discussed is USP8; the disease is leukemia.