Overview
Cell death is the cessation of a cell's vital functions, occurring either as a tightly regulated, programmed event or as uncontrolled necrosis following severe injury. The best-characterized programmed form is apoptosis, an orderly process driven by caspase cascades through intrinsic (mitochondrial) and extrinsic (death-receptor) pathways, which dismantles the cell while preserving membrane integrity to avoid inflammation. Additional regulated modalities, including necroptosis, autophagy-associated death, pyroptosis, and ferroptosis, expand the repertoire of mechanisms by which cells are eliminated. Programmed cell death is indispensable for embryonic development, tissue homeostasis, immune selection, and the removal of damaged, infected, or potentially neoplastic cells. Its dysregulation is central to disease: insufficient death permits tumor survival and autoimmunity, whereas excessive death contributes to neurodegeneration, ischemic injury, and tissue loss. Because cancer cells frequently evade apoptosis, restoring or triggering cell-death pathways, including modulation of immune checkpoints such as the programmed cell death protein-1 axis, is a major therapeutic strategy. The journal publishes peer-reviewed research in cell and molecular biology examining death pathways and their regulation, including checkpoint blockade in cancer, apoptosis and resistance in tumor cells, oxidative stress and cytoprotection in neural and cardiac cells, and the roles of cell death in carcinogenesis, metastasis, and therapy response.
Research published in this journal
12 peer-reviewed articles, ranked by relevance. Each links to its DOI.
How this research is being cited
The 12 articles above have been cited 78 times in the scholarly literature. Citation data via OpenAlex and Crossref, updated Jun 2026.
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2025 · Food and Chemical Toxicology
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2024 · Experimental Dermatology
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Adriana Ferreira et al. · 2024 · International Journal of Molecular Sciences
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2024 · Experimental Dermatology
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2024 · WIREs Mechanisms of Disease
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2024 · Current Issues in Molecular Biology
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2024 · International Journal of Molecular Sciences
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2023 · Biosensors and Bioelectronics
A sample of recent works citing this journal's research on Cell Death, linking to each citing work.