Recent studies have revealed marked variability in PD-1 or CTLA-4 expression among individuals and across different tumour sites in patients with HNSCC, a disparity that may contribute to suboptimal responses to PD-1/PD-L1 and CTLA-4 therapies in a subset of these patients [10]. The gene discussed is RPL17; the disease is head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.