Programmed cell death: Past, present and future

It is known that all living organisms are mortal. For many decades, the main interest of researchers has been focused on the investigation of proliferation, differentiation and other fundamental cellular processes, completely ignoring the understanding of the mechanisms of cell elimination. Since the 60s-70s of the last century, a systematic study of cell death began, which is currently one of the most rapidly developing areas of biomedicine. Since this field of research is very wide, in these short notes we tried to discuss the hottest, but not all, topics that are of interest to many of our colleagues. (c) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

Automated summary

This passage introduces that all living organisms have a limited lifespan, and research has mainly focused on the investigation of cellular processes such as proliferation and differentiation, neglecting the understanding of mechanisms of cell elimination. Since the 60s-70s, there has been a systematic study of cell death, which is currently one of the most rapidly developing areas in biomedicine. Due to the wide scope of this research field, the passage attempts to discuss some of the hottest topics that are of interest to many researchers, but not all of them.