<i>In vitro</i> experiments proved that downregulated SLFN11 is a useful diagnostic biomarker and is linked to imatinib resistance in colorectal cancer.<h4>Conclusion</h4>The expression level of SLFN11 has a substantial promise as a valuable biomarker for diagnosis and a predictive indicator for assessing the effectiveness of chemotherapy and immunotherapy in human cancers, which deserves further additional basic experiments and clinical trials to prove. The gene discussed is SLFN11; the disease is cancer.