"The dream of cancer researchers today is to make cancer self-destruct, to make tumours commit suicide. It sounds too good to be true, but in the last few years people have discovered that most normal cells in our bodies commit suicide, rather than dying of disease or old age. Cells die when they are told to; cell death is programmed to meet the body's needs. But cancer cells, it's been discovered, are cells that have learnt to ignore the fateful message when it's time for them to go. Instead they go on dividing and growing until they kill the person they are growing in, unless doctors kill them first. But scientists are seeking ways to make cancer cells listen to the message that they are deaf to, the message that says, kill yourself. Now the ICRF team have found exactly where the cancer cell blocks the death message. It turns out, surprisingly and conveniently, to be right out on the surface of the cell, where drugs can easily be directed. The next step is to design drugs that will remove the blockage, a difficult but not, it's thought, impossible task. Drugs that make cancer tumours self-destruct and disappear could be only a few years away."