Senescent cells are a cause of aging. While near all senescent cells are destroyed shortly after entering that state, either by their own programmed cell death processes or by the immune system, the few that linger accumulate over the years to cause considerable harm. While it is true that even in late life senescent cells are far outnumbered by non-senescent, functional cells, senescent cells secrete a potent mix of inflammatory and other signals known as the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP). The SASP disrupts tissue function, encourages nearby cells to also become senescent, and produce a state of chronic inflammation that accelerates many age-related conditions.

On the bright side, this means that near all age-related conditions can be turned back to some degree by the targeted removal of senescent cells, using senolytic therapies. The more such cells that are destroyed by a treatment, the larger the benefit. Since this produces such a broad range of beneficial effects, and there are only so many scientists in the world, the research community has yet to fully investigate even all of the most compelling, urgent uses of senolytic treatments to reverse specific age-related disease, let alone all of the other, lesser opportunities.

Today's open access paper on the prospects for senolytic therapies to effectively treat chronic kidney disease is an example of the sort of work we'll be seeing on a regular basis in the years ahead. Research teams will make slow inroads on assessing the use of senolytics as a rejuvenation therapy that can benefit patients with age-related condition A, B, or C, and so forth through a long, long list of diseases. It is a measure of just how new this field is, assessed in the grand scheme of things, that even the most widespread and severe conditions such as chronic kidney disease, those with no good therapeutic options at present, and wherein senolytic treatments might plausibly turn back much of the disease, are still not well investigated.

Cellular Senescence and the Kidney: Potential Therapeutic Targets and Tools