Nicoletta Lanese is a staff writer for Live Science covering health and medicine, along with an assortment of biology, animal, environment and climate stories. She holds degrees in neuroscience and dance from the University of Florida and a graduate certificate in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her work has appeared in The Scientist Magazine, Science News, The San Jose Mercury News and Mongabay, among other outlets.
"Zombie cells" that contribute to age-related diseases also help heal damaged tissues, so wiping them out could come with major downsides, a new study suggests.
How 'zombies' heal damaged tissues To find senescent cells in the lung, researchers genetically modified mice to carry a glowing protein on the gene that codes for the protein"p16," which is overactive in many senescent cells. Whenever a cell switched on the gene, it would also churn out fluorescent proteins and start to glow.
"This combination treatment is currently in multiple clinical trials," and in general, scientists have been on the lookout for signs that senolytics disrupt healing, said Dr. Danny Roh , an assistant professor of surgery at the Boston University School of Medicine who was not involved in the study. The new research suggests that this caution is warranted, Roh told Live Science in an email.
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