Special 

Special Issue: Autophagy in Physiology and Disease

This Cell Death & Differentiation special issue on Autophagy brings together a series of commissioned reviews dedicated to the rapidly expanding autophagy field. Outstanding experts discuss how autophagy emerged as a key process in most organismal developmental stages, from fertilization throughout adult life and regeneration; how the removal of cellular organelles and infectious agents needs to be carefully controlled, impacting on the immune response and on an expanding list of diseases; what are the best strategies to modulate autophagy for the treatment of cancer and other pathologies? The readers will be challenged by this and other thought-provoking questions which we hope will help them charting innovative paths toward our thorough understanding of this fundamental process and its therapeutic applications. 

Editorial

Reviews