Cellular processes controlled by HIFs have been associated with cancer development with HIF-1α being of particular interest since it has been described to promote an aggressive cancer phenotype, regulate the expression of various chemokines and cytokines (Mojsilovic-Petrovic et al., 2007; Tian et al., 2014), and control many important steps of the metastasis cascade (Jin et al., 2012; Semenza, 2012). The gene discussed is HIF1A; the disease is cancer.