Randal Halfmann at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas City is hoping to treat diseases including cancer and Alzheimer's by influencing how cells make life-or-death decisions.

In Alzheimer's, brain cells die too soon. In cancer, dangerous cells don't die soon enough.

That's because both diseases alter the way cells decide when to end their lives, a process called programmed cell death.

"Cell death sounds morbid, but it's essential for our health," says Douglas Green , who has spent decades studying the process at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.

For example, coaxing nerve cells to live longer could help people with Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease or ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease), he says, while getting tumor cells to die sooner could

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