Great question! By understanding the regulation of caspases and how they control apoptosis we can better recognize the diseased state and ways to enhance treatment. To elaborate, I can think of two types of examples: (1) Imagine small molecules being able to control whether a cell lives or dies. In neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Huntington’s disease, control of caspase activity could prevent the excess apoptosis that occurs as a result of these diseases. Conversely, many cancer cells overexpress certain kinases that phosphorylate caspases and make the cell immune to cell death. For example, PAK2 is overexpressed in a variety of cancer cell lines and inactivates caspase-7 via phosphorylation. This immunity to apoptosis poses a serious threat to cancer therapies that rely on cell death. However, if you administered a small molecule drug that activated caspase-7 it could enhance other therapeutic treatments. (2) Recently there have been a plethora of novel strategies to deliver proteins. Delivery of an executioner caspase, specifically to tumors, would result in apoptosis events in cancerous cells.