Senolytic Nanomedicine

For many people, living longer brings health challenges: Osteoporosis, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease. And of course, the zombie cells.

The technical term is senescent cells. They’re damaged and unable to repair themselves. They’re also more likely to linger in the body as we age — like zombies — secreting inflammatory molecules that can hasten our decline.

These cells have this very robust secretory phenotype and drive things such as impaired tissue regeneration, fibrosis, degeneration, inflammation — a lot of the conditions that are clearly central to age-related diseases. And that’s what’s exciting about these cells as therapeutic targets. In fact, they targets for Senolytics, the still-experimental drugs and supplements that eliminate senescent cells or tamp down their ill effects.

Cancer is a particularly promising research area for Senolytics (some existing chemo drugs have senolytic properties). It's not really about extreme longevity, but the health span/lifespan.

  In practical terms is about making life easier for people as they get older.  In SOMATIKE we’re really not interested in making drugs to help us live until we’re 120 and feel like we’re 120, if we have no effect on lifespan, but we are looking for the way to increase the number of active and productive years that are not overly burdened by disease and disability.

It sounds tantalizingly possible — and sort of gimmicky. The internet teems with products claiming to be “antiaging” senolytics. 

What’s real about senolytics as a future therapeutic option and how might they truly affect how people age?

The State of Senolytics Since the first senolytics were discovered in 2015, much of the promising research has been in mice. Some early senolytics, like navitoclax (ABT-263) and ABT-737, have stalled out (they ended up killing platelets in people and speeding up ovarian aging in older female mice). So far, the most effective senolytics are existing chemotherapy drugs.