The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has launched the Cellular Senescence Network (SenNet) program to study senescent cells that play positive and negative roles in the human body. They hope that this program will leverage recent advances in single-cell analysis to identify and characterize the differences in senescent cells across various health conditions and the lifespan.
According to NIH, the rarity and diversity of senescent cells have made it impossible for scientists to identify and study them. This program is created to develop therapies that suppress the tissue-damaging effects of senescent cells to get their beneficial effects .
What is Cellular Senescence?
Cellular division is the hallmark of human development. But a time will come when the body would accumulate a small number of cells that have stopped dividing. This process is known as cellular senescence in which cells would cease to divide and undergo distinctive phenotypic alterations and tumor suppressor activation.
According to News Medical Life Sciences, senescent cells play a significant role in biological processes. They could aid in wound repair or prevent tumors in some cancers and contribute to chronic age-related diseases and neurodegeneration. Due to its negative effects, "senolytics" are developed to remove them from the body.
NIH's National Cancer Institute director Dr. Norman "Ned" Sharpless said that studying senescent cells will help assess their role in the development of chronic diseases, including cancer. He added that among chronic age-related diseases, cancer is the most prevalent.
Through NIH's SenNet program, they are looking forward to the translational benefits that will come out of it that will give answers to some of the challenging questions on the role of senescent cells in aging and cancer, advancing their work in the overall cancer research field.
NIH Awards $125M in Total to Tissue Mapping Centers for Cellular Senescence Study
NIH is funding a total of $125 million to 16 grants over five years. They have already issued eight awards for the creation of SenNet Tissue Mapping Centers, seven awards for Technology Development and Application Projects, and has awarded one Consortium Organization and Data Coordinating Center (CDCC).
Some of the institutions awarded with a five-year grant for the SenNet Tissue Mapping Center include Yale Cancer Center, which received $6.5 million; Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, which received $7.5 million; and Pittsburgh School of Medicine and UPMC researchers, who received a combined amount of $31 million.
The Tissue Mapping Centers are tasked to identify biomarkers of senescent cells in human lymphoid organs and then construct high-resolution, detailed maps of cellular senescence across various health states and the lifespan.
Meanwhile, the CDCC will collect, store, and curate the data, tools, and models derived from the program. Institutions will work together to create an accessible and searchable Atlas of Cellular Senescence that will enable other researchers to develop therapeutics that target cellular senescence and improve human health that is difficult to achieve through individual efforts.
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