The second part of LEAF’s interview with the SENS Research Foundation team is out!
Welcome to part two of our three-part Undoing Aging 2018 interview of Dr. Aubrey de Grey and his team at SENS Research Foundation. Today, we have some of the scientific questions that the community had about SENS; there are some very detailed responses, and we hope you enjoy them.
Regarding the use of senolytics, are you concerned about their potential to remove highly specialized cells like cardiomyocytes, which do not divide or do so very slowly? Could taking senolytics without the ability to replace these specialized lost cells be risky unless combined with replacement therapies?
Aubrey: This is not a major concern, for a few reasons. First, when cells turn senescent, they cease carrying out their specialized function (as a cardiomyocyte, or neuron, or what have you), so no such function is lost by ablating them. Second, cells that don’t divide (like cardiomyocytes and neurons) are far less likely to become senescent in the first place than cell types that divide; many of the main drivers of senescence are related to cell division. And third, in the specific case of cardiomyocytes, there’s already significant evidence in rodents that it improves cardiac function overall [1] as well as wider cardiovascular health [2–3].
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