Cellestial Bodies

In every aging cell, a galaxy unfolds. The sky behind Storke Tower is built from fluorescent images of human skin cells—cellular “constellations” captured by the Wilson Lab. Like astrologers studying stars, we read these glowing patterns to predict age and search for compounds to promote longevity.

We fluorescently stain human skin cells from donors aged 17 to 90 to capture subtle, age-related changes in cellular structure. These images are used to train an AI model to predict biological age. By treating older cells with candidate compounds, we can identify those that revert cells to a more youthful state. The sky in this image—set behind UCSB’s Storke Tower—is a generative AI rendering, created using visual elements from real fluorescent cell images and stylized to resemble Van Gogh’s Starry Night. This visual metaphor captures how we interpret cellular data to understand and influence aging. This approach may offer new strategies for treating age-related neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.