Abstract: The invention provides a method for detecting apoptosis in a cell comprising detecting a decrease in any one of: i) an ELAVL-1 (embryonic lethal, abnormal vision, Drosophila-like 1) polypeptide having an amino acid sequences as set out in SEQ ID NO: 1; ii) a polypeptide having at least 80% homology with i); iii) a nucleic acid encoding a polypeptide having the sequence set out in i) or ii); iv) a nucleic acid which hybridises under stringent conditions to the sequence set out in iii); or v) the complement of iii) or iv). The invention accordingly provides a method of modulating apoptosis by modulating ELAVL-1 gene expression and a method for identifying genes associated with ELAVL-1 gene expression and thus identifying other genes associated with apoptosis. The invention also provides a novel nucleic acid sequence encoding the promoter region for ELAVL-1.