AKT1 and colorectal cancer: To identify essential genes involved in the progression of colorectal cancer, we developed a high‐throughput shRNA library screening strategy.[17, 18] The Network Essentiality Scoring Tool (NEST) was used for the negative selections.[19] Several candidate proliferation‐related genes, including DKC1 and five well‐known tumor growth‐associated genes (PCNA, AKT1, HRAS, ERBB2, and KRAS), were identified as top hits (Figure1A).