Apoptosis and Its Relevance to Autoimmunity

Over the last 15 years, apoptosis has moved from a peripheral circumscribed interest amongst a small group of scientists to the mainstream of modern biology and a highly prominent and, in some cases, dominant focus of medical research. This is particularly true in the field of immunology where more than 10 billion cells are turned over each day and cell death is a necessary part of immune tolerance and contraction following immune activation.