In exploring the genetic origins of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, Agrawal et al. in 2011 were the first to identify mutations in NOTCH1 and suggested that nearly 40% of the 28 mutations identified in that gene would impede the product of the gene, so they proposed that NOTCH1 could function as a tumor suppressor gene instead of a proto-oncogene (13). Here, NOTCH1 is linked to head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.