Senolytics

Senolytics are drugs that selectively kill senescent cells. The first senolytics were found by identifying the survival pathways that senescent cells use to resist apoptosis and then finding compounds that block those pathways. A senolytic dose removes a fraction of the senescent cell burden, and because senescent cells take weeks to reaccumulate, the drugs can be given intermittently.¹²

Principle

Senescent cells resist apoptosis and upregulate anti-apoptotic pathways that protect them from their own SASP. This survival dependence is the vulnerability that senolytics exploit: the drug transiently disables those pathways, and senescent cells die while proliferating and quiescent cells survive. The researchers called the schedule “hit-and-run”