A drug clears aged cells from a person's body

Some cells stop dividing but do not die, and sit in tissue giving off signals that inflame their neighbours; they build up with age. Clearing them makes old mice healthier and longer-lived. In 2019 a Mayo Clinic group gave a short course of two drugs that kill such cells to people with kidney disease, took tissue samples before and after, and found fewer of the cells. It is a first human, on a measurement, and no such drug is approved.

What would count

A person given a drug meant to kill senescent (aged, non-dividing) cells afterwards has measurably fewer of them in a tissue sample or a validated blood marker, compared with before treatment, in a peer-reviewed report.

Who settles it: Peer-reviewed trial reports; a regulator's approval record if it comes

Where it stands

First human. Reached on 18 September 2019, on the record of doi.org. Could move a stage within 1 to 5 years.

The last reading

Once a week every upgrade is read against the news, against what would count above. Open a line to see what that week held. Every reading of this upgrade is on this week's reading.

• 16 October 2026 Nothing new

  Nothing in the window. No regulator has approved a senolytic drug (a June 2026 summary says so), and the trials found (the Mayo Clinic osteoporosis trial, a small mild-cognitive-impairment trial, the St Jude survivors trial due 2027) add nothing to the rung already held.

Notes

The record is the 2019 report of dasatinib and quercetin in nine people with diabetic kidney disease, with fewer senescent cells in fat and skin samples afterwards. An earlier 2019 pilot in people with lung scarring reported better walking and standing but did not measure the cells, so it is not the record here. The animal record is the 2011 Mayo Clinic report in which clearing such cells from mice delayed several age-related conditions. Several company drugs of this kind have failed in trials since; none is approved.