Almost 40 years have passed from the historical discovery that cell death in the majority of the cases is not an accidental event, but corresponds to an extremely conscious and altruistic, thus highly regulated, process. Since the first observation in 1972 marked the ‘‘birth’’ of apoptosis, many advances have been made in the comprehension of the implicated mechanisms. Now, we are evolving to a new phase, in which we are learning that apoptosis is not the only paradigmatic form of active cell death.