Salk study is the first to reveal ways cells from the human circulatory system change with age and age-related diseases.

Salk scientists have used skin cells called fibroblasts from young and old patients to successfully create blood vessels cells that retain their molecular markers of age. The team’s approach, described in the journal eLife on September 8, 2020, revealed clues as to why blood vessels tend to become leaky and hardened with aging, and lets researchers identify new molecular targets to potentially slow aging in vascular cells.

“The vasculature is extremely important for aging but its impact has been underestimated because it has been difficult to study how these cells age,” says Martin Hetzer, the paper’s senior author and Salk’s vice president and chief science officer.