New targets are needed for acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), a disorder in which myeloid cells do not differentiate properly. Using a gene expression-based screen, Banerji et al. identified a role for glycogen synthase kinase 3α (GSK3α) in human AML. Pan-GSK inhibitors induced differentiation in AML cell lines and in patient blasts. Suppression of GSK3α using RNA knockdown impaired the growth and proliferation of AML cells in vitro, impaired engraftment and increased survival in an AML xenograft model. So this study shows that — similarly to the established role of GSK3β in leukaemia — GSK3α is a target in AML.