In research on hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), Tai et al. found that sorafenib and the novel sorafenib derivative SC-59 activated autophagy and inhibited tumor cell growth in a dose- and time-dependent manner in several HCC cell lines via a mechanism that led to disruption of the Beclin 1-Mcl-1 complex through downregulation of p-STAT3, which in turn decreased Mcl-1 expression; however, sorafenib did not affect the amount of Beclin 1 (Tai et al., 2013). This evidence concerns the gene STAT3 and hepatocellular carcinoma.