Genetics of the hypoxia-inducible factors in human cancers

Professor Lorenz Poellinger (Karolinska Institute/Cancer Science Institute of Singapore) passed away in March 2016. Then hypoxic research field lost a noble and unique researcher when he died, since he had contributed very much to this field in a variety of aspects. We had been collaborating on a various research projects of genomic analyses of HIF-signaling pathway for a long time, and recently reported several interesting results with HIF-α genes (HIF1A, EPAS1 and HIF3A). Genomics/Genetics is a still growing field, with new technologies appearing often, and many groups have performed extensive genomic/genetic analyses. In this review, I thus focused on the genetics of HIF-α genes in human cancers. I deeply mourn Professor Poellinger's loss and dedicate this review to him.