It is increasingly appreciated that the cancer stem cell (CSC) phenotype appears in a transitional state between epithelial and full-blown mesenchymal phenotypes during TGFβ-induced EMT (Dongre & Weinberg 2019, Kroger et al. 2019), and that TGFβ is an established regulator of CSC fate determination and lineage plasticity in normal and malignant tissues (Anido et al. 2010, Calcagno et al. 2010, Connolly et al. 2011, Oshimori & Fuchs 2012, Oshimori et al. 2015, Du et al. 2018, Katsuno et al. 2019, Panda & Biswal 2019). The gene discussed is TGFB1; the disease is cancer.