Survivin in apoptosis control and cell cycle regulation in cancer.

Evasion of apoptosis, and the ability to proliferate uncontrollably are two of the molecular traits found perhaps in all human cancers (1). Positioned at the interface between the regulation of apoptosis and the control of cell proliferation, survivin is a recently described molecule that is expressed in most human cancers but not in normal tissues. Encouraging new studies demonstrate that it may be possible to exploit the survivin pathway for cancer diagnosis and therapy.