If treated harshly, any cell can be induced to die. These pathological deaths typically occur by necrosis, a passive process that involves membrane disruption, cellular swelling and ultimately, cellular lysis. Less well appreciated is the observation that many, if not most, of the cells that die during an organism's life, commit suicide. Instead of swelling, these cells become condensed and in most cases, undergo stereotypic changes in their surface and nuclear morphology that has been termed apoptosis . Another feature of most apoptotic deaths, is the double-stranded cleavage of genomic DNA by an endogenous DNAse . Interestingly, not all cells that undergo programmed cell death exhibit these apoptotic