BCL2 and cancer: Many cancers display abnormalities in the levels of pro-survival and/or pro-apoptotic BCL-2 family members and evasion of apoptosis is widely thought to be essential to sustain the survival of nascent neoplastic cells and hence critical for tumorigenesis.14, 15 However, the mechanisms that protect cells undergoing neoplastic transformation from apoptosis remain incompletely understood.2, 16 Abnormalities in the BCL-2-governed apoptotic pathway or its regulators have been implicated in B-cell lymphoma development.