The past five years have witnessed a remarkable development of interest in cell death 'from inside out'. After 30 years of relative obscurity, its quantitative importance in the building and maintenance of normal tissues, the subtle strategies involved in its regulation, and its significance in the pathogenesis of diseases of major social importance are becoming clear. Moreover, because a distinct set of biological events is involved in this death, these events themselves become reason­ able targets for new pharmacological agents in the treatment of cancer. The articles in this volume summarize the contents of a discussion meeting held at the Royal Society on 23 and 24 February 1994. The authors are a distinguished international group from a variety of disciplines in biology and medicine and hopefully their articles will convey something of the excitement of this fast-moving field. The three organizers are enormously indebted to all the contributors for the enthusiasm with which they delivered their talks, shared in discussion, and finally committed their contributions to these printed pages. We would also like to acknowledge the gracious way in which the Royal Society hosted the meeting, and in particular Mary Manning for making it the trouble-free and enjoyable experience that it was, and Janet Clifford and Simon Gribbin for skillfully managing the editorial processing of this volume. Michael Dexter June 1994 Martin Raff Andrew Wyllie x 1 Death from inside out: an overVIew ANDREW H.