Phosphorylation of AKT at Ser473 is a novel biomarker to identify patients with advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) at high risk for treatment failure following radiotherapy, and data generated using ex vivo tissue cultures support the hypothesis that pharmacological inhibition of AKT phosphorylation at Ser473 might circumvent radioresistance to improve the efficacy and reduce the toxicity of current treatment modalities (Freudlsperger et al., 2015). The gene discussed is AKT1; the disease is head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.