salvador—The persistence of proliferation

Despite years of extensive studies on genes that regulate proliferation and cell death, two processes that must be tightly coordinated throughout development to regulate cell number, remarkably few genes have been shown to affect both processes. Using an elegant genetic screen in the fly eye, Tapon et al. (2002) have identified a gene, salvador, which is especially significant, because it not only regulates and coordinates both exit from the cell cycle and apoptosis, but also has a human homolog that may play a key role in tumorigenesis.