Senescent Cells and Antiaging Medicine: Development of Senolytics

“Aging” is a phenomenon that no one can avoid. In recent years, “senolytic drugs” have been attracting attention as modern elixirs of youth. Senolytics are designed to specifically kill and remove senescent cells. Senescent cells are defined as those that have reached the limit of their division number and have permanently stopped proliferating. Senescent cells have a property of resistance to apoptosis, accumulate in the body with age, and some of them cause a phenomenon called senescent-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) [1]. SASP secretes cytokines, chemokines, and growth factors, and the chronic inflammation caused by these can become the breeding ground for geriatric diseases, highlighting the harmfulness of senescent cells. It is said that 90% of people over 65 have some kind of geriatric disease, and more than 70% have multiple diseases. Until now, individual geriatric diseases have been treated individually, but as it becomes clear that cellular aging is involved in the root cause of geriatric diseases and individual aging, senolytic drugs, which could be a fundamental solution to these problems, are being actively developed [2].