Disruption of macroautophagy by the loss of a single allele of Beclin1/Atg6 (Class III PI3K) increases the incidence of cancers, showing a suppressive role for autophagy that may be mediated by inducing senescence (Nishida et al., 2009, Liu et al., 2014, Huang et al., 2014). The gene discussed is BECN1; the disease is cancer.