Intriguingly, aberrant expression of NEK2 and NEK2-mediated phosphorylation of downstream proteins (e.g. p53 at Ser31524 and GAS2L1 at Ser35225) are frequently observed to be associated with tumor initiation, progression, metastasis, and consequently poor prognosis in multiple cancers, including but not limited to, breast cancer26,27, colorectal cancer28, and PDAC29. Here, NEK2 is linked to cancer.