Any older athlete can attest that aging muscles don’t heal as fast as youthful ones. Now researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine have found a molecular link between older muscles and slow healing. This work could lead to ways of preventing atrophy from immobilization, space flight or simply due to aging. “What you really want to do is maintain the youthfulness of the regeneration pathway,” said Thomas Rando, MD, PhD, associate professor of neurology and neurological sciences and an investigator at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System. The work will be published in the Nov. 28 issue of Science.