[초청강연] [2021학년도 1학기 금요세미나] Cellular senescence in aging and age-related diseases: from mechanism to therapy

Cellular senescence in aging and age-related diseases: from mechanism to therapy

Ok Hee Jeon 
Korea University College of Medicine, Graduate School, Department of Biomedical Sciences 

 Aging is a complex process caused by a combination of environmental, genetic, and epigenetic factors. A chronic inflammation, also termed as inflammaging, is considered to be one of the drivers of aging and age-related chronic diseases. Recently, cellular senescence has been proposed as a new source of this prolonged, low-grade inflammation observed during aging and age-related disorders. The cellular senescence is essentially characterized by an irreversible arrest of cell proliferation coupled to a secretion of senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) that includes immunologically relevant factors, extracellular proteases, inflammatory cytokines, and growth factors. The senescence prevents the development of cancer. However, the persistent presence of senescent cells and especially the SASP creates the degenerative tissue environment, most likely by promoting chronic inflammation, and further drive aging pathologies such as Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and osteoarthritis. Thus, it becomes important to 1) understand the contributions of cellular senescence to chronic inflammation, aging and diseases (for example, osteoarthritis) as well as the process that cause its accumulation and detrimental effects, 2) discover new biomarkers for aging and aging-related diseases based on SASPs, and 3) develop strategies to eliminate senescent cells. This talk will cover these points and therapeutic approaches to specifically target senescent cells called senotherapeutics.