Cellular senescence was first described by Hayflick and Moorhead in the 1960s as the
irreversible arrest of cells following prolonged cultivation. Telomere shortening is the key
mechanism driving replicative senescence in human fibroblasts. Later, pioneering work by
Olivier Toussaint and others showed that stress plays a major role in the induction of
senescence in vitro, a phenomenon known as stress-induced premature senescence or
SIPS. It is also now widely accepted that senescence plays a role in vivo. An emerging body …