Unc-51 like autophagy activating kinase 2 (ULK2), a key serine/threonine protein kinase, is pivotal in the initiation of autophagy in various cancers, including gastric cancer (Motoo et al., 2022), lung adenocarcinoma (Tsang et al., 2020) and prostate cancer (Hu et al., 2020). The gene discussed is ULK2; the disease is cancer.