It's how our bodies stymie tumors and fight back viral invasions. It's the garbage collection system that eliminates diseased or unnecessary cells, such as milk-secreting mammary cells after a baby is weaned. Sacrifice a few cells for the health and development of the organism. That's why Lois Miller, a UGA Research Professor of Genetics and Entomology and a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, has devoted the past seven years to the study of cell suicide, which has become one of the hottest topics in cell biology. But it is not the same thing as necrosis, which is what happens when cells die from injury.
People think only of life, but in fact death is important in the proper balance of life.
It's so new that you won't even find it in the latest biology textbooks. It was known that a major battle is fought when a virus tries to establish an infection. Suicide as a Defense Mechanism When a virus invades the cells of a host organism, its purpose is to take over the metabolic processes of the host cells and get them to make more virus instead. They express genes in just the right sequence and take over cell machinery to start making more of their own kind. Cell suicide is one way host cells can foil the virus' takeover attempt.