EIF2AK2 and head and neck cancer: It is of interest, then, that increased expression of PKR (eIF2AK2), a kinase that phosphorylates eIF2α, and of eIF2A, the recruiter of alternate tRNAi, occur in a majority of head and neck cancers (TCGA dataset) and that they significantly correlate with poor survival of HNSCC patients (Figure 4).