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.By combining Raman microscopy with gene expression data at single-cell resolution from the same cells, the researchers were able to identify unique “barcodes” that can be used...