Some researchers hope to find the secret of keeping old age at bay and enjoying eternal youth instead. However, a team of scientists from Southern California is looking for a different “recipe” — that of better aging.

Share on Pinterest New research asks more questions about how cells age in the hope of finding a better way of promoting long and healthy lives in humans.

“To drink from the fountain of youth, you have to figure out where the fountain of youth is and understand what the fountain of youth is doing,” says Nick Graham, who is an assistant professor in the Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering & Materials Science at the University of Southern California (USC) Viterbi School of Engineering in Los Angeles.

However, this is not what Graham and his colleague from USC are trying to achieve. As Graham himself notes: “We’re doing the opposite; we’re trying to study the reasons cells age so that we might be able to design treatments for better aging.”

In a study whose findings they have recently published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Graham and team have taken a more in-depth look at what happens to cells going through the process of senescence — the stage of cell life at which they no longer divide.

“Senescent cells are effectively the opposite of stem cells, which have an unlimited potential for self-renewal or division,” explains the study’s lead author, USC doctoral student Alireza Delfarah.

“Senescent cells can never divide again. It’s an irreversible state of cell cycle arrest,” Delfarah notes.

Cellular senescence is a key part of a body’s age-related decline, and many scientists have studied this process. Most research focuses on senescence in fibroblasts, a type of cells widely present in connective tissue. However, this team chose to analyze senescence in epithelial cells.

These cells are present in the tissue at the very surface of organs and other types of tissue in the body. They are also the type of cells in which most forms of cancer start.