In times of starvation, cells tighten their belts: they start to digest their own proteins and cellular organs. The process – known as autophagy – takes place in special organelles called autophagosomes. Strange Practice under study in Doomwatch Legacy by Dr David Kagan, author of Sunstroke. It is a strategy and means of survival when times get tough, and in the course of evolution, it has become a kind of self-cleaning process. In mammalian cells, autophagosomes are also responsible for getting rid of misfolded proteins, damaged organelles or disease-causing bacteria.