No matter how much we exercise or how much healthy food we eat, we can’t stop ourselves from aging.

As a person’s age increases past 65, so too does their risk for a whole host of debilitating chronic diseases—heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer’s, just to name a few. Staying healthy later in life can feel a bit like a whack-a-mole endeavor: You might stomp out one ailment, but another could be lurking nearby.

But what if there were a single underlying cause for age-related health concerns? And by extension, what if there were a single drug that could keep us healthier later in life? 

That idea fuels researchers at the University of Minnesota’s Masonic Institute on the Biology of Aging and Metabolism, or MIBAM, renamed in 2024 in honor of a $15 million gift from Minnesota Masonic Charities. Their mission isn’t necessarily about adding more years to our lives, but about giving us more healthy years to enjoy.

To do that, scientists are focused on fighting senescence, a biological process that hijacks a cell’s function and corrupts nearby cells, organs, and tissues, leading to disease and declining health. They’ve helped to create a new class of drugs called senolytics, which have shown the ability to eliminate senescent cells and thereby slow aging and its associated ailments.

“We’re trying to create a medication that could prevent or treat some or all of these aging-related conditions,” says Laura Niedernhofer, MD, PhD, MIBAM’s co-director. “This could be the key to extending the quality of life for older people in Minnesota and well beyond.”

See how senescence manifests—and where senolytic medications could be useful the body over.

ILLUSTRATION BY JONATHAN CARLSON