The microcosmos of cancer

The discovery of microRNAs (miRNAs) almost two decades ago established a new paradigm of gene regulation. During the past ten years these tiny non-coding RNAs have been linked to virtually all known physiological and pathological processes, including cancer. In the same way as certain key protein-coding genes, miRNAs can be deregulated in cancer, in which they can function as a group to mark differentiation states or individually as bona fide oncogenes or tumour suppressors. Importantly, miRNA biology can be harnessed experimentally to investigate cancer phenotypes or used therapeutically as a target for drugs or as the drug itself.