ClinicalTrials.gg
Not yet recruitingNCT07838389Updated Sep 24, 2026

Evaluation of Donor-Derived B Cell Infusions in Patients With Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)

A Phase 1 interventional study of B cell infusion in ALS - Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, sponsored by Mark Poznansky. Not yet recruiting at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 18 Years to 70 Years. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-09-24.

Sponsored by Mark Poznansky · Phase 1, Interventional, and Treatment

Phase
Phase 1
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
10
Allocation
Not applicable
Ages
18 Years to 70 Years
Sex
All
01

Where this study stands

Counted across the records on this site · 2026-11-12

Among 440 studies in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis with a site in United States — 98 open to participants now, 129 under way, 11 of them phase 3. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis · United States.

Planned enrollment
246th of 307
10 · median 33
Started
2027
with 3 others
Phase 1
57 of 440
11 open now
Primary completion
2030-01
later than 100 of 128 live
Registered
431st of 440
by date

Among the 440 studies in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis with a site in United States, this one is the 246th largest by planned enrollment of the 307 interventional ones that give a count, is one of 4 that started in 2027, is one of 57 in phase 1, reaches primary completion later than 100 of the 128 other live ones, and was the 431st registered.

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

979 studies on the registry are indexed under Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis; 278 are open to participants now.

Browse Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis studies →

Open to participants now

98 of the 440 studies in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis with a site in United States are open now. Recruiting first, the newest first:

93 more — sign in →

All 98 open studies →

A study can be open while its sites in United States have not opened yet or have stopped. Only those recruiting at a site in United States →

Who these studies take

Of the 193 Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis studies recruiting now, 118 (61%) set no upper age limit and 23 (12%) stop at 75 or younger; 15 take children under 18; 55 take healthy volunteers.

This study: 18 Years to 70 Years · all sexes · no healthy volunteers.

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02

Study summary

This study is testing whether giving people with ALS specially matched immune cells called B cells from a related donor is safe. Up to 10 participants will each receive two B cell infusions at least 60 days apart. The main goals are to watch closely for side effects, see whether the participant's immune system rejects the donor cells, and determine whether this treatment should be studied further in people with ALS. The first three participants will receive the infusions in the hospital with extra safety spacing between participants; if those infusions appear safe, the remaining participants may receive them in an outpatient setting.

Read the detailed description

This is a phase 1, non-randomized, open-label study to assess the safety and pharmacokinetics of up to 2 doses of donor B cells. Up to 10 recipients will each receive 2 infusions of donor B cells at doses of ≥ 2.0 x 10\^8 and ≤ 1.0 x 10\^9 donor B cells delivered at least 60 days apart. The first three participants will receive infusions as inpatients in a staggered fashion 30 days apart. After completion of a 30-day observation of the third participant after the second infusion, study investigators will determine whether the infusions are safe and well-tolerated and that there are no indications of significant immune rejection of the donor B cells. In such a case the remaining participants will receive 2 infusions in an outpatient setting with no mandatory staggering interval. Each participant will be followed for six months after the second infusion.

Donors. Each subject will be consented along with a relative meeting the HLA matching requirements to serve as a donor. The patient and potential donor will be HLA (A, B and DR- B1) tested and the potential donor will be a haploidentical match to the recipient, will have cleared all medical and infectious diseases screening tests, and will have agreed to be the B cell donor for this study. Each donor will undergo one or more leukapheresis procedures each yielding up to 1.5 mL of a concentrated white cell fraction. Purified B cells will be derived from these cells for a target final yield of between 2.0 x 108 and 1.0 x 109 B cells. Purified donor B cells will be stored in liquid nitrogen and thawed at bedside for infusion into participant.

Recipients. Prior to infusion, each enrolled subject will have a pre-infusion visit (study Day -50 to -40) where medical history will be taken, vitals and ALS-related measurements will be taken and a blood sample drawn to establish baseline blood counts, chemistry, and immunologic profile.

Treatment. All participants will receive up to 2 infusions of ≥ 2.0 x 10\^8 and ≤ 1.0 x 10\^9 donor B cells with the second infusion no less than 60 days after the first infusion. Participants will receive infusions with no preparatory treatment. Donor B cells in a concentration of 1.0 x 10\^7 donor B cells/mL in a volume of up to 100 mL will be delivered over a 2-hour period through a peripheral line pre-incubated with a 4% solution of human serum albumin.

Evaluation. The first three participants will receive infusions as inpatients to carefully monitor responses to infusions for up to 24 hours. These participants will be staggered 30 days apart. If infusions of inpatient participants appear to be well tolerated and safe, the remaining participants will receive infusions as outpatients with no staggering.

Safety monitoring will include periodic measurement of vital signs and specific blood tests, monitoring of changes in medical history, reports of AEs, evaluation of ALS status through ALSFRS-R and grip strength, and assessment of Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale.

Blood tests will be taken periodically to monitor for changes in CBC, including ESR and CRP, and a metabolic panel that includes an expanded range of kidney function tests as well as ferritin. Study investigators will evaluate blood markers of immune rejection at time points up to the first four weeks after each infusion.

During the study, blood tests will be taken periodically to monitor other immunologic markers including flow cytometry using an established antibody panel developed for the previously-conducted expanded access studies.

03

Conditions studied

  • ALS - Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Keywords

  • cell therapy
  • B lymphocytes
  • immunotherapy
  • allogeneic cells
04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
18 Years to 70 Years
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
No

Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.

Inclusion criteria

  1. Confirmed diagnosis of ALS that meets the revised El Escorial criteria for probable lab-supported, probable, or definite ALS.
  2. Age 18-70 years.
  3. Vital capacity of >65%.
  4. ALSFRS-R score of >30.
  5. Absence of abnormalities on screening labs, including but not limited to /AST \< 3x , \<1.5x ULN (unless there is documented history of Gilbert's disease), serum Cr \< 1.5x ULN, WBC > 3.5, HCT >33, Plts > 120.
  6. Negative tests for , HepB sAg, .
  7. Available potential donor who must be a haploidentical match to the recipient and agree to be the B cell donor for this study.

    • Note: Participants are eligible if they are taking any, all, or none of the following: riluzole, edaravone, and/or high-dose methylcobalamine; and the start date of these medications are at least 30 days prior to the baseline visit.

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  1. Unable or unwilling to comply with protocol requirements.
  2. Known current or history of recurrent bacterial, viral, fungal, mycobacterial, or other opportunistic infection.
  3. Use of tofersen (Qalsody).
  4. Use of Rituximab (Rituxan), Ocrelizumab (Ocrevus), Ofatumumab (Kesimpta, Arzerra), Epratuzumab (LymphoCide), Belimumab (Benlysta), MEDI-551, or other anti-CD20, anti-CD19, or anti-CD22 antibodies.
  5. Use of Atacicpet or other BlyS or APRIL inhibitors.
  6. Use of Chimeric antigen-receptor T cells targeting CD19 or CD20, including tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah), Aaxicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta), brexucabtagene autoleucel (Tecartus), and lisocabtagene maraleucel (Breyanzi).
  7. Additional active neurological disease that could confound the participant's ALS symptoms.
  8. Major episode of infection requiring hospitalization or treatment with IV antibiotics within 4 weeks of screening.
  9. Immunization with within 4 weeks of screening. Study participant must agree to forgo live-attenuated vaccines throughout the study.
  10. Chronic (any chronic immunosuppressive immunotherapy including daily oral use > 6 months).
  11. Other active disease except psoriasis or hypothyroidism.
  12. Active (excluding skin cancer other than melanoma) within 5 years.
  13. History of any of the following: cardiac insufficiency (defined as III/IV), unstable ischemic heart disease, uncontrolled cardiac arrhythmias, or uncontrolled hypertension (defined as systolic blood pressure >170 mmHg or diastolic blood pressure >110 mmHg).
  14. Unstable cardiac, renal, hepatic, endocrine, pulmonary or hematologic disease, at the discretion of the PI.
  15. Anything that, in the opinion of the PI, would place the participant at increased risk or preclude the participant's full compliance with or the completion of the study.
  16. Participant unwilling to practice for the duration of the study. Men and women of (WOCBP) should use an approved method of birth control and agree to continue to use this method for the duration of the study.

    Acceptable methods of contraception include abstinence, female participants/partner's use of hormonal contraceptive (oral, implanted, or injected) in conjunction with a barrier method (WOCBP only) (e.g., diaphragm, cervical cap, male condom, and female condom and spermicidal foam, sponges, and film), female participant's/partner's use of an intrauterine device (IUD), or if the female participant/partner is surgically sterile (e.g., bilateral tubal ligation, hysterectomy) or two years at time of screening. All male participants/partners (excluding men who have been sterilized) must agree to consistently and correctly use a condom for duration of the study. In addition, participants may not donate sperm for the duration of the study.

  17. Participation in another interventional trial or use of an experimental ALS product with an ongoing clinical development program in an expanded access program, compassionate use program or through practitioner prescription. Over the counter medications are acceptable, as are standard of care ALS medications.
Terms in these criteria, in plain language(15)

Underlined terms in the criteria open these too. Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.

Clinically significant

Judged by the study doctor to matter for your health or for the study. It is a doctor’s decision, so ask the study team if you are unsure whether something counts.

ALT and AST (liver enzymes)

Two enzymes measured in a routine blood test of the liver. Higher levels can mean the liver is under strain or damaged. SGPT and SGOT are older names for ALT and AST.

Criteria usually give a limit as a multiple of the upper limit of normal (ULN), often higher when cancer has spread to the liver.

ULN (upper limit of normal)

The top of the normal range for a blood test, as set by the laboratory that runs it. Each lab prints its own range next to your result.

“≤ 2.5 × ULN” means the result can be up to two and a half times that top value.

Bilirubin

A yellow substance made when red blood cells are broken down, which the liver clears. A high level can mean a problem with the liver or the bile ducts.

Criteria often allow more for people with Gilbert’s syndrome, a harmless inherited condition that raises bilirubin.

HIV

The human immunodeficiency virus, which weakens the immune system.

Many studies now accept people whose HIV is controlled on treatment, judged by the viral load and the CD4 count. Check the limits this study sets.

Hepatitis C tests

Hepatitis C is a virus that infects the liver. An HCV antibody test can stay positive after an infection has cleared (and is occasionally positive without one); an HCV RNA test shows whether the virus is there now.

After treatment, hepatitis C counts as cured when HCV RNA is still undetectable 12 weeks or more after the treatment ended. Studies often accept people cured this way.

Live vaccines

Vaccines made with a weakened form of the germ, such as measles–mumps–rubella (MMR), chickenpox and yellow fever. They can be risky when the immune system is weakened. Flu injections are not live; the nasal flu spray is.

Immunosuppression

A weakened immune system. It can come from an illness, such as HIV or some blood cancers, or from medicines that turn the immune system down, for example after an organ transplant or for an autoimmune disease; steroids at higher doses count.

Read whether the line is about a condition or about medicines, and which medicines and doses it means.

Corticosteroids (steroids)

Anti-inflammatory medicines such as prednisone, prednisolone and dexamethasone — not the anabolic steroids used for muscle.

Studies differ in what they allow: check which steroid medicines, routes (tablets, injections, creams, inhalers, eye drops) and doses this study accepts.

Autoimmune disease

A condition in which the immune system attacks the body’s own tissues, such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, psoriasis, type 1 diabetes or inflammatory bowel disease.

Immunotherapy studies often leave out active autoimmune disease, and some name exceptions, such as thyroid disease on replacement hormone. Check the exceptions this study lists.

Cancer (malignancy)

Malignancy means cancer. Criteria about another or earlier malignancy ask whether you have had a different cancer, usually within a set number of years.

Some are commonly allowed, such as treated skin cancers other than melanoma and early cancers removed completely — check the exceptions this study lists.

NYHA class (heart failure)

The New York Heart Association’s four classes of how much heart failure limits physical activity.

I
No limits: ordinary activity causes no undue tiredness or breathlessness.
II
Slight limits: comfortable at rest, ordinary activity causes symptoms.
III
Marked limits: comfortable at rest, less than ordinary activity causes symptoms.
IV
Symptoms even at rest; any activity makes them worse.

Studies set their own limit — many outside heart failure leave out class III–IV, while heart failure studies may ask for a particular class. Check the class this study names.

Contraception

Ways of preventing pregnancy. “Highly effective” methods fail less than 1% of the time a year when used correctly — for example an IUD or an implant.

Criteria usually say which methods count and how long to keep using them after the last dose, sometimes for male participants too. Some studies accept a partner’s vasectomy if it was confirmed successful and that person is the participant’s only sexual partner.

Childbearing potential

Able to become pregnant: from the first period until menopause, unless permanently unable to through surgery (removal of the womb, or of both ovaries or both fallopian tubes).

Criteria for people of childbearing potential usually ask for a negative pregnancy test and for contraception during the study and for a time after it.

Postmenopausal

Periods have stopped for good: usually no period for 12 months in a row without another medical reason, sometimes confirmed by a blood test (FSH).

05

Study design

Phase
Phase 1
Primary purpose
Treatment
Allocation
Not applicable
Intervention model
Single group
Masking
None (open label)
Enrollment
10 participants (estimated)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    ALS patients receiving infusions of haploidentical donor B cells

    ALS patients receiving infusions of haploidentical donor B cells between 200 million and 1 billion cells per infusion with the second infusion 60 days after the first.

    Biological: B cell infusion

Interventions

  • BiologicalB cell infusion

    infusion of haploidentical donor CD19+ B cells

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Infusion associated adverse events of special interest

    Safety and tolerability of up to 2 infusions of donor B cells at individual doses of between 2.0 x 10\^8 and 1.0 x 10\^9 donor B cells defined by: * Incidence of all AEs, as defined for the 30-day time point, at 60 days. * Incidence of Treatment Emergent Serious Adverse Events (TE-SAEs) at 30 days defined as the composite of graft-versus-host disease, other persistent immunologic abnormalities, bleeding disorders, stroke, myocardial infarction, or death.

    Time frame: Up to 6 months after 2nd infusion

  2. Evidence of host rejection of infused cells

    Donor cell rejection: Indications of immune rejection of B cell infusions defined by changes in specific blood markers and ex vivo cell assays after either the first or second infusion of donor B cells compared to baseline levels of each.

    Time frame: Within 4 weeks of 2nd infusion

07

Study locations

1 site
  • Sean M. Healey and AMG Center for ALS at Massachusetts General Hospital
    Boston, Massachusetts 02114, United States
    • Dario Gelevski · ContactDGELEVSKI@mgh.harvard.edu · 617-726-0563
    • James D Berry, MD, MPH · Principal investigator
    • Kellen Quigg, MD, MS · Sub investigator
08

References and documents

Individual participant data

Plan to share: Undecided

No publications or documents are linked to this record.

09

Timeline

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
ElapsedEstimatedEstimated, not yet reachedSimilar studies: half by the dot; the band is the middle halfHalf of similar studies reached it by the dot; the band is the middle half, from a quarter to three quarters

Start is estimated for Sep 2027; primary completion for Jan 2030, 28 months later.

Of 30 non-industry phase 1 interventional studies under Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, half reached primary completion within 19 months of starting (the median), counting those still running; a quarter within 16 and three quarters within 41. This study's planned 28 months is above that.

Counting every sponsor, half of 70 studies reached it within 21 months; a quarter within 13 and three quarters within 41.

How these figures are worked out, and which studies are left out of them.

Registered
Sep 11, 2026
First posted
Sep 24, 2026
StartEst.
Sep 2027
Primary completionEst.
Jan 2030
CompletionEst.
Jan 2030
Last update
Sep 24, 2026
What these dates mean
Start.
When the first participant enrolled; while estimated, when the study expects to open to recruitment.
Primary completion.
When the last participant was examined or treated to collect data for the study's main question, its primary outcome. A study that stopped early gives the date its data collection stopped.
Completion.
When the last participant's last visit took place, for every outcome, secondary ones and side effects included: the end of the study. Often later than primary completion, sometimes the same day.
Actual and Est.
Actual means the registry says the date has happened. Est. (estimated) is a date the sponsor plans or expects. It can still move, and the sponsor is expected to change it to actual once it has passed.
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Sep 24, 2026, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT07838389
Lead sponsor
Mark Poznansky
Responsible party
Mark Poznansky (Professor of Medicine; Director Vaccine & Immunotherapy Center, Massachusetts General Hospital) — Sponsor-investigator
First posted
Sep 24, 2026
Start date
Sep 2027 (estimated)
Primary completion
Jan 2030 (estimated)
Completion
Jan 2030 (estimated)
Last update
Sep 24, 2026

Study contacts

Mark C Poznansky, MD, PhD
Contact
mpoznansky@mgb.org
617-724-6375
Allison M Baldwin, MPH
Contact
akmitchell@mgh.harvard.edu
617-643-2478
James D Berry, MD, MPH
principal investigator · Massachusetts General Hospital

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
Yes
FDA-regulated drug
Yes
FDA-regulated device
No
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

Not currently enrolling

This study is not yet recruiting, as verified in Sep 2026. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.

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