CORBIS, ROBIN BARTHOLICK
Sometimes the human body turns on itself. Cancer and autoimmune diseases involve some form of physiological revolt, when a body’s own cells and molecules rise up to bring about its undoing. Patients suffering from most of these disorders have a variety of treatment options, formulated from a mechanistic understanding of the molecular roots of the diseases. But in acute pancreatitis, a largely untreatable disease, the exocrine cells of the pancreas—whose role is to manufacture enzymes that are normally mixed with bile from the liver to digest dietary proteins and fats—malfunction and digest themselves and surrounding tissues and organs in a more mysterious fashion. Acute pancreatitis is usually preceded either by heavy alcohol consumption or by blockage of the duct that unites the common bile duct ...
