{"id":244303,"date":"2026-09-21T09:06:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T14:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/ai-powered-barcode-unmasks-zombie-cells-in-aging-tissue"},"modified":"2026-09-21T09:06:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T14:06:14","slug":"ai-powered-barcode-unmasks-zombie-cells-in-aging-tissue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/ai-powered-barcode-unmasks-zombie-cells-in-aging-tissue","title":{"rendered":"AI-powered barcode unmasks \u2018zombie cells\u2019 in aging tissue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/ai-powered-barcode-unmasks-zombie-cells-in-aging-tissue.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>As we age, some of the cells in our body enter a state of senescence, in which they stop dividing but do not die. Those senescent cells can contribute to age-related disorders such as cancer, tissue degeneration and inflammatory diseases. In an advance that could lead to better ways to diagnose and treat those diseases, MIT researchers have developed a noninvasive way to detect biomarkers of senescence. Their method is based on Raman microscopy, which can reveal the biochemical composition of cells without harming them.<\/p>\n<p>By combining Raman microscopy with gene expression data at single-cell resolution from the same cells, the researchers were able to identify unique \u201cbarcodes\u201d that can be used to quickly identify senescent cells. This study was done in mouse cells, but the researchers are now working on adapting it for use with human tissue.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can imagine that one day we may develop an endoscope that can look inside your body and identify cellular senescence,\u201d says Jeon Woong Kang, an MIT research scientist and one of the senior authors of the study.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As we age, some of the cells in our body enter a state of senescence, in which they stop dividing but do not die. Those senescent cells can contribute to age-related disorders such as cancer, tissue degeneration and inflammatory diseases. In an advance that could lead to better ways to diagnose and treat those diseases, [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,19,269],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-chemistry","category-life-extension"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244303\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}