Cells Across the Body Talk to Each Other About Aging

Aging can seem like an unregulated process: As time marches along, our cells and bodies inevitably accumulate dings and dents that cause dysfunctions, failures, and ultimately death. However, in 1993 a discovery upended that interpretation of events. Researchers found a mutation in a single gene that doubled a worm’s life span; subsequent work showed that related genes, all involved in the response to insulin, are key regulators of aging in a host of animals, from worms and flies to humans. The discovery suggested that aging is not a random process—indeed, specific genes regulate it—and opened the door to further research into how aging proceeds at a molecular level.

Recently, a set of papers documented a new biochemical pathway that regulates aging, one based on signals passed between mitochondria, the organelles best known as