A beta test for senescence

While senescence is usually associated with the down-side of aging, a group at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has found the process can be beneficial for secretion of insulin by pancreatic β cells, and suggests inhibiting senescence could cause problems for glucose control.

Senescent cells show a decreased ability to grow and proliferate, and have largely been explored in studies seeking to exploit the process to treat cancer. But a role for senescence is not restricted to cancer cells, said Ittai Ben-Porath, who was principal investigator on the Hebrew U study. "What we see is that as we age normally, senescent cells accumulate in our tissues in almost every organ," he told BioCentury...