Our online medical glossary of medical terms and definitions includes definitions for terms related to treatment, and general medicine
CELL DEATH
Cells die (nonaccidentally) either when they have completed a fixednumber of division cycles (around 60, the Hayflick limit) or at some earlier stage when programmed to do so, as in digitseparation in vertebratelimb morphogenesis.
Whether this is due to an accumulation of errors or a programmed limit is unclear, some transformed cells have undoubtedly escaped the limit.
See: apoptosis.