Lucifer's labyrinth--ten years of path finding in cell death.

Cell death, as a foil to cell expansion, has become one of the most intensively studied research areas of modern biology. Almost every aspect of life is intimately enmeshed with the proper regulation of cell death, which either contributes to or forms the basis of most human disease pathogenesis. Now, with our ever-expanding knowledge of the various death pathways, comes the hope that we might harness cell death--by either inhibition or promotion--to translate the concepts into cure.