Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Secondary ProgressivePhase 1NCT07270120
Senolytics for Secondary Progressive MS
A Phase 1 study testing Dasatinib and quercetin in people with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Secondary Progressive, run by Ohio State University at 1 site in United States.
Trial summary
This is a clinical trial to see whether senolytic therapy is safe and feasible for patients with secondary progressive MS and whether treatment improves physical and thinking abilities. Read more about this study
- Who is it for?
- Ages 50 to 85 years
- Conditions the study is for
- Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Secondary Progressive
- What is being tested?
- Dasatinib and quercetin
- Type of treatment
- Pill or oral medicine
- Could I receive a placebo?
- No, everyone receives an active treatment
- How many people
- 30 participants
- Where
- 1 siteUnited States
- Study dates
- 15 Jan 2026to 15 Jan 2028
- Phase
- Phase 1
- Are there results?
- Not yet: the study is under way
Key requirements
Who can take part, as listed by the sponsor. Only the study team can confirm whether you are eligible, so take this list to your doctor.
- Ages 50 to 85 years
- All sexes
- No healthy volunteers
- Adult, Older adult
Who may be able to join
- Individuals aged 50-85 with SPMS diagnosed using the 2024 McDonald Criteria
- Not treated with a DMT for MS within the last 6 months or have used alemtuzumab, cladribine, or mitoxantrone.
- Evidence of MS progression over the past 12 months.
Who cannot join
- Unstable coronary artery disease (myocardial infarction within 6 months or angina)
- Hospitalization within 6 months
- Stroke or transient ischemic attack in the past 6 months
- Pulmonary arterial hypertension
- Current or chronic history of liver disease
- Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease
Show all 22Show fewer
- Drug or alcohol abuse in the previous 5 years
- History of coagulation disorders, central nervous system hemorrhage, or gastrointestinal hemorrhage
- History of angina or myocardial infarction, arrhythmia, or heart failure at any time
- QTc prolongation
- Anemia (Hgb<9), thrombocytopenia (platelets<50,000 per microliter), or neutropenia (ANC< 1000 per microliter)
- Moderate hypokalemia (2.9 mmol/L) and moderate hypomagnesemia (0.9-1.1 mg/dL or 0.37-0.45 mmol/L)
- ALT/AST >1.5x ULN, total bilirubin >ULN, and alkaline phosphatase >2x ULN
- Chronic renal disease (glomerular filtration rate < 30 mL/min/1.73 m2)
- Alcohol intake greater than 2 drinks/day for men and greater than 1 drink/day for women
- Anti-arrhythmic medications known to cause QTc prolongation
- Antipsychotics and anxiolytics
- Anti-platelet or anti-coagulant medications other than aspirin
- Quinolone antibiotics
- Pregnant or lactating subjects or subjects intending to become pregnant or to donate egg/sperm
- Participants with p16INK4a below the median of SPMS patients in the OSU Aging and MS Cohort
- Use of drugs metabolized by the same liver enzymes as D or Q
Trial locations and contacts
1 site in 1 country. Contact the study team or a site near you to ask about taking part.
United States1 site
Ohio State Martha Morehouse Outpatient Care
Columbus, Ohio, 43210
Yinan Zhang, MD, 614-293-4969, msresearch@osumc.edu
6142934969
About this study
Official title: Senolytics to Improve Physical and Cognitive Function in Older Adults With Multiple Sclerosis
This is a clinical trial to see whether senolytic therapy is safe and feasible for patients with secondary progressive MS and whether treatment improves physical and thinking abilities. The study seeks to enroll adults with secondary progressive MS (SPMS), aged 50-85, who are not currently taking a MS disease-modifying therapy and have noticed their MS symptoms getting worse. People who join the study will take the medicines dasatinib and quercetin by mouth every two weeks for three months. These medicines work together to remove old, damaged cells that may cause inflammation and slow the repair of nerves. Participants will also be followed for one year from enrollment to monitor for treatment effects.
Read the detailed description
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic immune-mediated inflammatory and neurodegenerative disorder of the central nervous system (CNS), which afflicts approximately one million people in the United States. Age is the strongest driver of disease course in MS. With increasing age, most older adults with MS develop a progressive disease phenotype characterized by gradual accrual of irreversible neurological disability, for which there are no effective treatments that reliably slow disease progression. Cellular senescence is a hallmark of aging, whereby senescent cells accumulate with age and produce mediators of inflammation through the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP). In MS, senescent cells have been identified in both the central nervous system and peripheral immune compartments contributing to SASP expression, promoting chronic inflammation, axonal damage, and failure of myelin repair, and ultimately leading to functional decline. Senescent cells can be selectively removed by senolytic drugs, which delay age-related dysfunction in animal models and show potential for improving functional outcomes in human clinical trials. The senolytic drug combination of dasatinib and quercetin (D+Q) selectively induces apoptosis of senescent cells in human tissue. Our pilot data shows D+Q treatment improves function and survival in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, the widely used animal model of MS. Emerging evidence from early phase clinical trials of D+Q in age-related diseases shows improvement of gait speed in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and CNS penetrance of dasatinib in Alzheimer's disease. However, studies of senolytic therapy for people with MS have yet to be conducted. The investigators hypothesize that treatment with D+Q will be well tolerated, improve physical and cognitive function, reduce circulating biomarkers of senescence and neurodegeneration, and attenuate T-cell immune exhaustion. The investigators will test this hypothesis through a single arm, open label, study to 1) determine the feasibility of 3 months of intermittent D+Q treatment in 30 older adults age 50-85 with secondary progressive MS and 2) to obtain preliminary data of D+Q treatment on physical and cognitive function and 3) serum biomarkers of senescence, neurodegeneration, and the circulatory T cell repertoire. Targeting cellular senescence represents a novel strategy for treating progressive MS, and results from the study will lay the foundation for a future randomized controlled trial of senolytics to treat progressive MS.
- Being tested
- Dasatinib and quercetin
- Keywords
- senolytic, multiple sclerosis
- Medical subject headings
- Multiple Sclerosis, Chronic Progressive, Multiple Sclerosis
What participants receive
What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.
Dasatinib and quercetinDrug
Also called D+Q
Participants will receive 100 mg of dasatinib and 1250 mg of quercetin orally once a day for 2 days every 2 weeks over 12 consecutive weeks
| Study group | Role | What they receive |
|---|---|---|
| Treatment | Experimental | Dasatinib and quercetin Receives: Drug: Dasatinib and quercetin |
What is being measured
The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.
Participant retention rate
Participant retention rate with D+Q therapy with no more than one missed study visit
Measured: Baseline until 3 months
Recruitment feasibility
The number of subjects screened to identify eligible participants
Measured: Baseline
Frequency of adverse drug effects of dasatinib and quercetin
Frequency of adverse drug effects of dasatinib and quercetin
Measured: From baseline through study completion at 1 year
Timeline
From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.
- First posted8 Dec 2025
- Study start15 Jan 2026 (estimated)
- Primary completion15 Jan 2027 (estimated)
- Study completion15 Jan 2028 (estimated)
Resources
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govThe registry entry this page is built from, with its full change history.
- Other trials for Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Secondary ProgressiveStudies of the same condition, open and under way.
- More trials run by Ohio State UniversityThe sponsor's other registered studies.
- What the trial phases meanHow a treatment moves from first tests in people to approval.
More details
For doctors and researchers: how the study is designed, who runs it, and its registry IDs.
Study design
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Phase 1
- Primary purpose
- Treatment
- Allocation
- Not applicable
- Intervention model
- Single group
- Masking
- None (open label)
- Enrolment
- 30 participants (estimated)
Sponsor and investigators
- Lead sponsor
- Ohio State University
- Sponsor type
- University, hospital or other
- Responsible party
- Principal investigator, Yinan Zhang, Ohio State University
IDs, dates and publications
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT07270120
- Sponsor's protocol ID
- STUDY20251750
- Status last verified
- Dec 2025
- First submitted
- 19 Nov 2025
- Last updated
- 8 Dec 2025
- Results posted
- No
- Data monitoring committee
- Yes
- FDA-regulated drug
- Yes
- FDA-regulated device
- No
- Individual data sharing
- Undecided: The data management and sharing plan will be consistent with the NIH Data Sharing Policy and Implementation Guidance which recognizes the need to make the research data generated from the NIH support projects available to the scientific community while ensuring that the privacy and autonomy of research participants are respected, and that confidential/proprietary data are appropriately protected. Data will include demographic, clinical, functional, and cognitive data from study participants, in addition to banked blood, urine, and lymphocytes. All investigators wishing to access the data will submit a brief proposal to Drs. Zhang or Kirkland describing their research project, data needs, regulatory approvals, and mechanisms to assure patient confidentiality. Upon affirmative review by the Dr. Zhang and co-investigators of this study, a data-sharing agreement will be signed and the requesting investigators will be given a working electronic data file and appropriate documentation.
Study at a glance
From the registry record, last updated by the sponsor on 8 Dec 2025. Recruitment status is as the sponsor reported it: confirm with the study team.
- Official title
- Senolytics to Improve Physical and Cognitive Function in Older Adults With Multiple Sclerosis
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT07270120
- Acronym / sponsor ID
- STUDY20251750
- Keywords
- senolytic, multiple sclerosis
- Phase
- Phase 1
- Study type
- Interventional
- Recruitment status
- Not yet recruiting
- Enrolment
- 30 participants (estimated)
- Lead sponsor
- Ohio State UniversityUniversity, hospital or other
- Study start
- 15 Jan 2026 (estimated)
- Primary completion
- 15 Jan 2027 (estimated)
- Study completion
- 15 Jan 2028 (estimated)
- First posted
- 8 Dec 2025 (actual)
- Results
- Not posted in the source record
Clinical summary
The research question as the sponsor registered it. This describes what the study plans to test, not what it found.
This is a clinical trial to see whether senolytic therapy is safe and feasible for patients with secondary progressive MS and whether treatment improves physical and thinking abilities. The study seeks to enroll adults with secondary progressive MS (SPMS), aged 50-85, who are not currently taking a MS disease-modifying therapy and have noticed their MS symptoms getting worse. People who join the study will take the medicines dasatinib and quercetin by mouth every two weeks for three months. These medicines work together to remove old, damaged cells that may cause inflammation and slow the repair of nerves. Participants will also be followed for one year from enrollment to monitor for treatment effects.
Detailed description
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic immune-mediated inflammatory and neurodegenerative disorder of the central nervous system (CNS), which afflicts approximately one million people in the United States. Age is the strongest driver of disease course in MS. With increasing age, most older adults with MS develop a progressive disease phenotype characterized by gradual accrual of irreversible neurological disability, for which there are no effective treatments that reliably slow disease progression. Cellular senescence is a hallmark of aging, whereby senescent cells accumulate with age and produce mediators of inflammation through the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP). In MS, senescent cells have been identified in both the central nervous system and peripheral immune compartments contributing to SASP expression, promoting chronic inflammation, axonal damage, and failure of myelin repair, and ultimately leading to functional decline. Senescent cells can be selectively removed by senolytic drugs, which delay age-related dysfunction in animal models and show potential for improving functional outcomes in human clinical trials. The senolytic drug combination of dasatinib and quercetin (D+Q) selectively induces apoptosis of senescent cells in human tissue. Our pilot data shows D+Q treatment improves function and survival in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, the widely used animal model of MS. Emerging evidence from early phase clinical trials of D+Q in age-related diseases shows improvement of gait speed in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and CNS penetrance of dasatinib in Alzheimer's disease. However, studies of senolytic therapy for people with MS have yet to be conducted. The investigators hypothesize that treatment with D+Q will be well tolerated, improve physical and cognitive function, reduce circulating biomarkers of senescence and neurodegeneration, and attenuate T-cell immune exhaustion. The investigators will test this hypothesis through a single arm, open label, study to 1) determine the feasibility of 3 months of intermittent D+Q treatment in 30 older adults age 50-85 with secondary progressive MS and 2) to obtain preliminary data of D+Q treatment on physical and cognitive function and 3) serum biomarkers of senescence, neurodegeneration, and the circulatory T cell repertoire. Targeting cellular senescence represents a novel strategy for treating progressive MS, and results from the study will lay the foundation for a future randomized controlled trial of senolytics to treat progressive MS.
Study design
- Primary purpose
- Treatment
- Allocation
- Not applicable
- Intervention model
- Single group
- Masking
- None (open label)
- Number of arms
- 1
| Arm | Type | Receives |
|---|---|---|
| Treatment | Experimental | Drug: Dasatinib and quercetinDasatinib and quercetin |
Who may qualify
- Ages
- 50 to 85 years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Not accepted
- Age groups
- Adult, Older adult
Key inclusion criteria (3 listed)
- Individuals aged 50-85 with SPMS diagnosed using the 2024 McDonald Criteria
- Not treated with a DMT for MS within the last 6 months or have used alemtuzumab, cladribine, or mitoxantrone.
- Evidence of MS progression over the past 12 months.
Key exclusion criteria (22 listed)
- Unstable coronary artery disease (myocardial infarction within 6 months or angina)
- Hospitalization within 6 months
- Stroke or transient ischemic attack in the past 6 months
- Pulmonary arterial hypertension
- Current or chronic history of liver disease
Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening; this overview does not establish that a patient qualifies. Full inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Interventions
| Intervention | Type | Arms |
|---|---|---|
| Dasatinib and quercetinAlso: D+QParticipants will receive 100 mg of dasatinib and 1250 mg of quercetin orally once a day for 2 days every 2 weeks over 12 consecutive weeks | Drug | Treatment |
Primary outcome
Participant retention rate
Time frame: Baseline until 3 months
Participant retention rate with D+Q therapy with no more than one missed study visit
Recruitment feasibility
Time frame: Baseline
The number of subjects screened to identify eligible participants
Frequency of adverse drug effects of dasatinib and quercetin
Time frame: From baseline through study completion at 1 year
Frequency of adverse drug effects of dasatinib and quercetin
Results and safety
This study is still under way. Results are not available in the source record yet.
Research links
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govLast updated by the sponsor 8 Dec 2025.
- Individual participant dataSharing planned: Undecided. The data management and sharing plan will be consistent with the NIH Data Sharing Policy and Implementation Guidance which recognizes the need to make the research data generated from the NIH support projects available to the scientific community while ensuring that the privacy and autonomy of research participants are respected, and that confidential/proprietary data are appropriately protected. Data will include demographic, clinical, functional, and cognitive data from study participants, in addition to banked blood, urine, and lymphocytes. All investigators wishing to access the data will submit a brief proposal to Drs. Zhang or Kirkland describing their research project, data needs, regulatory approvals, and mechanisms to assure patient confidentiality. Upon affirmative review by the Dr. Zhang and co-investigators of this study, a data-sharing agreement will be signed and the requesting investigators will be given a working electronic data file and appropriate documentation.
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Referral and contact
AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals. Contact the study team or a site listed below; they decide who can take part.
1 site in 1 country: see every site and its status.
Questions about this trial
What is this clinical trial studying?
A Phase 1 study testing Dasatinib and quercetin in people with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Secondary Progressive, run by Ohio State University at 1 site in United States.
The full registered description is in the About this study section and the official record.
Who may be eligible to take part?
The sponsor lists 3 inclusion and 22 exclusion criteria. Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening, so read the full criteria and contact a listed site.
Is this clinical trial currently recruiting?
The record says: opening soon, as of the sponsor's last update on 8 Dec 2025. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.
Where is the study taking place?
The record lists 1 site in United States. Whether a site is taking part right now should be confirmed with that site. See every site.
What are the possible benefits and risks?
They depend on the study and the treatment, and no study can promise a benefit. The study team explains the known risks during informed consent, before anyone joins; the record itself does not list them.
What does this phase mean?
Phase 1 studies test a treatment in a small group of people for the first time or in a new way, mainly to check safety and find the right dose.
Not every study follows the same path, and some studies (observational studies, device studies) have no phase.
Are results available for this study?
This study is still under way. Results are not available in the source record yet.
How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?
Each site lists its own contact: choose the nearest one under Trial locations. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.
What does the primary outcome measure?
Participant retention rate (time frame: Baseline until 3 months). The study lists 3 primary outcomes in all. It is what the study was designed to measure, not a finding.
Where can I read the original study information?
Does a listing mean the treatment is approved or proven to work?
No. A listing means the study is registered. It does not show that the treatment is safe, works, or is approved by a regulator.
How often is this information updated?
AzTrials copies changed records from ClinicalTrials.gov every night and reloads the whole registry every week. The sponsor last updated this record on 8 Dec 2025.