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In thiscourse, you will learn about the conserved, molecular machinery that eliminatescells through programmed cell death type I, also referred to as ‘apoptosis’.Through apoptosis many cells are eliminated from our body during developmentand throughout adult life, and deregulated apoptosis can lead to variousdiseases such as cancer and auto-immune diseases. Rather than just telling youabout the molecular machinery of apoptosis and how it works to kill cells, Iwill walk you through and discuss with you the critical experiments that led tothe discovery of the key components of this molecular machinery and themechanisms through which they function. I will alsodiscuss how apoptosis research can help to develop novel therapeuticsand consider the questions that remain open inthe field.
The coursewill cover the following topics:
1. Introductionto programmed cell death and apoptosis
2. TheBCL-2 family of proteins
3. Apafproteins
4. Caspases
5. Mechanismsthat regulate apoptosis
6. Non-apoptoticfunctions of components of the central apoptosis machinery
7. Diseasescaused by deregulated apoptosis
Overview
