Through a meticulous process of extensive research undertaken by the collaborative effort by the eminent researchers Dr. Zheng Dong and Craig Brooks it has come to the fore that when a cell is found to be gravely stressed by the sudden occurrence of heart attack, stroke or even cancer the sheer existence of a protein called Bak just may set it up for the suicidal process. It has been acknowledged from the duo that as part of a lethal twofold malediction, the presence of Bak in due course of action facilitates in the slicing of the finger-like filament shape of the cell's powerhouse or mitochondrion into a set of defenseless little spheres, to be followed by another protein called Bax in the poking of innumerable in those spheres, spilling their pro-death contents into the cell.

Dr. Zheng Dong, the eminent cell biologist at the Medical College of Georgia and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Augusta and the corresponding author on a paper on this very subject published in the recent days said, "We found out Bak has a distinct function in regulation of the  mitochondrial morphology. Bax, on the other hand, is not involved in morphological regulation but needs to be there to puncture holes." On the contrary Craig Brooks, the MCG graduate student who happens to be the first author of the paper said, "One has to break up, kind of soften, the mitochondria for injury, and the other one actually punches the holes to kill it."

Through the researches they have come to the conclusion that Bak and Bax have similar structures and this has been since for long there has been a suspicion among the scientists that the two take part in key, analogous roles in programmed cell death, or apoptosis.  In this respect according to Dr. Dong "These two proteins are very important for mitochondrial injury and subsequent apoptosis."  

As far it has been revealed, that as a part of the research and to lay emphasis on cells, the two researchers had to impede the oxygen supplies in conjunction with the utilization of the widespread chemotherapeutic agent cisplatin. It was then followed by the documentation of the filamentous mitochondria that was found becoming disorderly very early and quickly in apoptosis.  In contradiction they also found the deadly fragmentation results from Bak's communication with mitochondria-shaping proteins called mitofusins, which facilitate mitochondria to keep their filamentous shape in non-stressed cells.