Surviving apoptosis after administration of a drug triggered a previously unknown evolutionary process that gave tumor cells greater resistance to subsequent therapies. A cancer cell that does not die gets stronger. Cancer reappears with those cells that escape death thanks to a mechanism that, at the same time, offers a potential therapeutic target. According to a study led by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in collaboration with the University of Glasgow and University of Oxford, the alternative to the cell death program is a stress response pathway that generates a persister cell phenotype not described before.