Secret behind a fit and well body explained

All the cells in our bodies are preprogrammed to destroy themselves in a carefully regulated process that helps keep us fit and well. Failure of this vital process can lead to disease or even death.

The intricacies of this wonderful process, known as apoptosis, were described last night during a lecture in Dublin by the RDS/Irish Times Boyle Laureate, Prof Tom Cotter, who heads the Department of Biochemistry at University College Cork.

In a lively visual presentation entitled "Sex, Drugs and Cell Suicide", Prof Cotter explained his research into programmed cell death and described how it safely rid the body of ageing and unnecessary cells.

An example of its silent efficiency, he said, was seen in the fact that the body sheds about half its total weight in cells each year by apoptosis without us even noticing. This was a major undertaking, given that the body has at least 10,000 billion cells.

"The unusual name is a Greek word that means a leaf falling off a tree or a petal falling off a flower," he told his capacity audience last night at the RDS, Ballsbridge. The process was first discovered in 1972 by Dr Andrew Wyllie, then at Aberdeen University and now at Cambridge.

"What he saw through his microscope were cells falling off the scaffolding on which they were growing, and he wanted a name for this process." It was eventually provided by the university's professor of Greek.

There had been much research since then in an attempt to understand apoptosis and to identify the genes responsible for it, Prof Cotter said.

He described how he and Dr Doug Green of the University of California, San Diego, became internationally known when their discovery of one of the genes associated with apoptosis became a cover story in the scientific journal Science in 1993.

He also explained how cancer cells could develop ways to fight back against apoptosis. Prof Cotter won the Boyle Medal in 1999 in recognition of his world-class research into apoptosis. Then in its centenary year, the medal was relaunched in a joint initiative by the RDS and The Irish Times, and now includes a £30,000 Boyle Medal Bursary. The funds are used to support a PhD student of Prof Cotter's choice, who will also join his research team at UCC on a three-year programme this September.