the present invention relates to a method of regulating apoptosis . the method comprises the step of introducing into a cell an rna construct comprising a nucleotide sequence which is homologous to mrna within said cell . the mrna within the cell includes genetic information of a gene element involved in the regulation of apoptosis . the invention also relates to an sirna construct having a nucleotide sequence which is homologous to mrna transcribed from a gene element involved in the regulation of apoptosis .