Cristina Aguayo-Mazzucato is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at Harvard University, focusing on the aging processes of pancreatic beta cells and their contributions to the development of diabetes. Her research is centered around identifying both pharmacological and non-pharmacological senolytic interventions to halt these aging processes and alter the course of type 2 diabetes. Aguayo-Mazzucato's work has successfully identified specific aging markers in beta-cells that allow tracking the dynamics of aging in individual cells, demonstrating that cellular senescence is a key mechanism in the aging of these cells. Her findings suggest that models of insulin resistance can accelerate the aging of beta cells and that targeting this aged population may improve insulin secretion and blood glucose levels. Moving forward, she aims to continue her investigation into the mechanisms behind beta cell senescence to identify new therapeutic targets, with the ultimate goal of translating her findings into clinical settings to develop novel interventions for type 2 diabetes, while also being optimistic about their relevance to type 1 diabetes.