Recent studies highlight its context-dependent behavior in cancer: METTL16 can promote tumor progression in colorectal and gastric cancer [Wei et al., 2023, Wang et al., 2021], while acting as a tumor suppressor in bladder and papillary thyroid cancers, where its downregulation correlates with more aggressive disease [Yu et al., 2024, Li et al., 2024]. The gene discussed is METTL16; the disease is thyroid gland papillary carcinoma.