Could Drugs That Target Zombie Cells Make Us Live Forever?

Although it is still on early trials yet on mice, could drugs that target “zombie cells” be used to make us live forever?

By: Ringo Bones

Mayo Clinic in the United States are conducting early trials on senolytics: anti aging drugs that can slow and even reverse the ageing process, in a bid to ward off diseases like Alzheimer’s, cancer, heart disease and diabetes that showed really promising results on lab animals. A senolytic is among the class of small molecules under basic research to determine if they can selectively induce death of senescent cells – also known as zombie cells. The goal of those working to develop senolytic agents is to delay, prevent, alleviate, or reverse age-related diseases. Multiple possible senolytic agents are under investigation. Certain anti-cancer agents may, in low doses, decelerate aging and age-related diseases. Targeting cancer prevention with anti-cancer agents may confer longevity effects by offering protection from metabolic pathologies during aging, independently of effects of cancer. Navitoclax, also known as ABT-263, was originally studied as an anti-cancer drug.

Cellular senescence – i.e. how zombie cells behave inside our bodies – is one of the causes of aging because the inflammatory signals generated by growing numbers of senescent cells or zombie cells disrupt tissue maintenance and cell function and play an important role in many age-related conditions, including osteoarthritis. The best approach in dealing the senescent cells inside our bodies appear to be a simple one – destroy them. These so-called zombie cells accumulate slowly and therapies that selectively remove senescent cells have been shown in animal studies to produce significant reversal of numerous aspects of aging.

Research on flushing out those so-called zombie cells from our bodies to reverse the human aging process is still on its early stages. Most biochemical startups are focusing on some anti-cancer drugs. Others are researching the stem-cell route to make zombie cells revert into less harmful normal cells. But research into the use of existing of-the-shelf anti-cancer drugs that target zombie cells is the one that currently shows the most promise. Even the relatively inexpensive and widely available diabetes drug metformin has been studied for its anti-aging effects for a number of years because this drug was found out to inhibit the nasty secretions of senescent cells.