BIRC5, a member of the inhibitor of apoptosis (IAP) gene family, promotes cancer development by inhibiting the apoptosis of HCC cells (Zhang et al., 2014), promoting cell proliferation (Sun et al., 2013), enhancing chemoradiotherapy resistance (Liu et al., 2013b) and inducing stromal angiogenesis in the tumor (Fernandez et al., 2014). The gene discussed is BIRC5; the disease is hepatocellular carcinoma.