Even though temperatures fell below −23°C, (known to slow caspases in vitro), this year's Keystone meeting on the ‘Molecular Mechanisms of Apoptosis, held at the Keystone Resort, 16–22 January 2001’, and organized by Doug Green and Gerard Evan was the ‘best cell death meeting ever’. Or at least in keeping with the Sydney Olympics, it was so declared by some of the Australian delegates. This was due to the overall organisation, the outstanding presentations and the participation of over 500 delegates bringing almost as many posters. The clear crisp weather, a good blanket of snow, a frozen lake and a skin-full of beer helped.
While it is generally accepted that the death of a cell by apoptosis involves the activation of caspases, the complexities of the signalling pathways that lead to caspase activation, the regulation of these proteases and the consequences of their activation are still unfolding. At this meeting a broad range of topics were discussed from upstream signalling events specific to individual death stimuli and diseases to the final removal of the dead cell. A variety of new molecules were reported while single and double knockout studies advanced our knowledge of the time-honoured players in this field. In addition to classical caspase-dependent apoptosis, there was much interest in alternative pathways to cell death. We heard presentations about death that is ‘not apoptosis but may not be necrosis’, a death that may be ‘paraptosis’, and events involved in the death of a cell in the absence of caspase activation.
