Pharmaceutical Intervention in Apoptotic Pathways

Apoptosis or "programmed cell death" recently emerged as a new scientific field.

It is now widely accepted that almost every cell in our body can be triggered to kill itself and that either failure to do so or - the opposite - do it too early is fundamental for a large variety of diseases e.g.

AIDS, neurodegeneration and cancer. The prospect that modulation of apoptosis might provide new opportunities for treatment is gradually affecting both fundamental and applied pharmaceutical research.

To discuss the newest developments the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences organized a meeting in the summer of 1997.

As is reflected in the title of the proceedings the concept of apoptosis was discussed in terms of its potential value for drug discovery and development rather than as a novel molecular mechanism alone.

The general feeling emerging from the exciting discussions was that the impact of the concept on medicine is only beginning to be realized and appreciated.