There is an increasing awareness in the cell death field that apoptosis may not be the only cellular mechanism for programmed cell death. The demonstration that the classical death receptor mediated pro-apoptotic signaling led to necrotic cell death under apoptosis deficient conditions in selective cell types suggests the existence of a cellular mechanism for necrotic cell death. The ability of Bax/Bak double knockout cells to undergo autophagy cell death suggests that autophagy might provide an alternative mechanism of cell death. The ability of caspase inhibitors to induce autophagy cell death in specific cell types suggests that caspases may normally inhibit the activation of alternative cell death pathways. The cell death field is on the verge of major breakthroughs in the identification of alternative cellular mechanisms of cell death. Since this will be the first international meeting emphasizing the mechanisms of non-apoptotic cell death, we intend to provide a historical review as well as the current views of apoptotic vs. non-apoptotic cell death mechanisms by inviting two keynote speakers: Dr. Richard Lockshin, one of the first persons to notice alternative forms of cell death during normal animal development, and Dr. Craig Thompson, a leader in the cell death research. The meeting will have two major objectives. First, evidence will be provided to document the existence of alternative cellular mechanisms of cell death in normal development, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. Second, invited speakers will provide new insights into the molecular mechanisms of non-apoptotic cell death. In addition to the poster sessions, we will also leave a significant number of speaker slots for new and hot results selected from abstracts submitted. We expect this meeting will have major impacts on the cell death research in general by highlighting the importance of nonapoptotic cell death mechanisms.