Apoptosis is one of the hottest topics in present day research, offering an umbrella for studies in the fields of general biochemistry, cell biology, cellular differentiation, molecular biology, and immunology. A few years ago it became clear that there is also a strong link between apoptosis and autoimmunity. In some autoimmune diseases it has been shown that there is a defect at some step in the apoptotic cascade of events which, in genetically susceptible people, may lead to a change in the …