Research Library
A growing library of research guides on peptides being studied in academic and clinical settings.
Each guide covers what the peptide is, how it works, what researchers use it for, and practical information like storage. We pull from peer-reviewed studies and present it in plain language — so whether you’re experienced or just getting started, you’ll come away understanding the compound.
Start Here
New to peptides? These guides lay the foundation.
Foundations
The vocabulary, the history, and how to judge what you read.
Peptide names look like random codes until you know the handful of conventions behind them. Most are one of five things: a description, a sequence, a fragment, a lab code, or a trade name.
There are around twenty of these ultra-short peptides, each named for a different organ. They come from one Russian research programme, they share one design principle, and they are the most interesting — and most overstated — corner of peptide science.
The field began in 1902 with an experiment that overturned how the body was thought to communicate. Everything in this library sits somewhere on the line that followed.
Most claims in this field are technically true and still misleading. The trick is knowing which questions to ask — and they are simpler than they look.
Close to a hundred guides is a lot to land in front of. This is the order we would read them in — about ninety minutes to go from knowing nothing to reading any compound page with confidence.
It appears on nearly every compound page in this library, and it is the number people most often misread. Half-life tells you how long something lingers — not how strongly it acts, and not what kind of compound it is.
Half the bioregulator family are extracts and half are synthesised peptides. They are sold alongside each other, discussed interchangeably, and cannot be assessed the same way.
Every peptide you will read about on this site was built by hand-assembling a chain, one amino acid at a time, on a plastic bead. Understanding how explains why some cost ten times more than others — and why purity differs between suppliers making the same compound.
Alongside the published literature there is a second, much larger body of evidence: enormous numbers of people experimenting on themselves and comparing notes online. It is not worthless and it is not what it appears to be. Reading it well is a skill.
They turn up in the same articles, the same shops and the same conversations about ageing. None of them is a peptide. Here is what they actually are, and where the two subjects genuinely connect.
Insulin was once an experimental extract that had never been given to a person. Around eighty peptide medicines are now approved worldwide. Here is how they got there — and why most candidates never do.
Three amino acids, present in almost every cell you have, and doing a job no signalling peptide does. It also breaks the tidy rule that peptides are messengers — which makes it worth understanding properly.
Two amino acids. That is the minimum a peptide can be and still be one. It concentrates in muscle and brain, it is built on a bond the body cannot easily break, and it is the clearest illustration of how much a peptide can do with almost nothing.
Diabetic cats have been on peptide therapy for decades, and one of the most successful veterinary peptides in the world was invented in Australia. That story is real. So is a newer one: owners giving research peptides to their dogs on the strength of rodent studies — and a placebo effect that works on the owner instead of the animal.
Practical Guides
Handling, storage, and how to verify what you received.
How long lyophilised powder and reconstituted peptides actually last, what degrades them, and why printed shelf-life dates are deliberately conservative.
Read a redacted real certificate, compare its fields, and distinguish document checks from evidence about a vial.
Lyophilised, secretagogue, GHRH analogue, bioregulator, HPLC — the vocabulary used across this library, defined in plain English.
Four levels of proof — regulatory approval, registration in Russia and the CIS, human trials, preclinical work — explained plainly, with the compounds that meet each one.
Ordered routes through the library by interest rather than category, each step explaining why it comes at that point. Several guides only make sense after another has landed.
Every study cited anywhere in this library, in one list, with the guides that cite it — and the papers that more than one guide depends on.
Trial results, regulatory decisions and claims that are no longer current — including the results that went the wrong way. Dated, and updated as the evidence moves.
Comparisons
Head-to-head guides for the compounds most often confused with each other.
One receptor, two, or three. The incretin compounds are usually discussed as if they were versions of the same thing — but each acts on a different combination of receptors, and that is what separates them.
All three prompt the pituitary to release growth hormone, which is why they get lumped together. But they do not use the same pathway — and that difference is why two of them are studied as a pair rather than as alternatives.
Three compounds from one family, routinely treated as interchangeable. They are not. Which melanocortin receptors each one binds determines what it does — and explains why two hold regulatory approval and one does not.
Two synthetic neuropeptides from the same Moscow institute, often mentioned in the same breath. One is studied for sharpening attention, the other for taking the edge off — which is exactly why they are examined as a pair.
Both are ultra-short peptides from Vladimir Khavinson’s bioregulator programme, and both are studied at the level of gene expression. What separates them is which tissue each one is designed to speak to.
Two compounds constantly mentioned in the same breath. They are not alternatives to each other — they act at different points in the same repair sequence.
They are not two brands of the same thing. One is a 43-amino-acid protein; the other is a seven-amino-acid piece of it — and the name "TB-500" has, at different times, been sold as each.
Two peptides discussed in mitochondrial signalling research, with different experiments and evidence limitations.
All three come from the same thymic work in the Khavinson programme. One is an extract, two are defined dipeptides, and only two hold any regulatory approval.
The same peptide is sold in two versions whose duration differs by a factor of roughly three hundred. DAC is not a purity grade or a brand — it is a chemical hook that changes what the molecule does to the system it acts on.
These three are grouped together constantly and have almost nothing in common. Different molecules, different targets, different mechanisms, different regulatory status. Here is what actually separates them.
Metabolic Research
Peptides studied for energy balance, appetite, glucose regulation, and body composition.
The first peptide ever designed to activate three metabolic receptors at the same time — GIP, GLP-1, and glucagon. The most advanced compound in current obesity research, with Phase 3 trial data showing the largest body-weight effects ever reported for a metabolic peptide.
The first peptide ever designed to activate two metabolic receptors at the same time — GIP and GLP-1. FDA-approved in 2022 with one of the largest clinical evidence bases of any research peptide.
A long-acting analogue of amylin — the "other" fullness hormone your body releases after meals, alongside insulin. Targets a completely different receptor system than the GLP-1 and GIP family, and is being studied as part of the CagriSema combination programme.
A modified growth-hormone fragment studied in animal models and human trials. This guide separates experimental observations, tolerability reports and claims that have not been substantiated.
A 16-amino-acid peptide encoded by your mitochondrial DNA — one of only a handful of peptides written by the cell's own energy machinery. Often called an "exercise mimetic" in research because it activates the same metabolic pathway physical exercise activates.
The single GLP-1 agonist every newer metabolic compound is measured against. Understanding what it does — and what it does not do — is the starting point for reading anything in this category.
A peptide studied in cellular stress and mitochondrial signalling research. Its name and classification should not be mistaken for proof of how it is produced in the body.
Survodutide, Mazdutide, Bimagrumab and the rest. A field that spent decades with one mechanism now has half a dozen in play — and they are no longer all doing the same thing.
Every compound in this category descends from a single hormone your intestine releases after a meal. Understanding that hormone explains the whole family.
Recovery & Tissue Repair
Peptides studied for wound healing, tissue regeneration, and musculoskeletal recovery.
A 15-amino-acid peptide your body already makes — found naturally in human stomach juice. One of the most extensively studied compounds in tissue repair research, with over 100 published studies behind it.
A synthetic fragment of Thymosin Beta-4 — a protein your body already produces and deploys at every wound site. One of the most broadly studied tissue repair peptides in the published research literature.
Three amino acids derived from the C-terminal end of alpha-melanocyte-stimulating hormone, studied for inhibiting NF-κB without binding melanocortin receptors.
A four-amino-acid peptide that concentrates over a thousand-fold in the inner mitochondrial membrane, stabilising the lipid that organises the cell's energy production machinery. Also known as Elamipretide, with one of the most substantial clinical evidence bases of any mitochondrial-targeted compound.
Erythropoietin does two quite separate jobs. ARA-290 is an attempt to keep one of them and leave the other behind.
Repair is not one process but a sequence, and the compounds in this category act at different points in it. That is why they are studied together rather than as alternatives.
TB-500 is a fragment. This is the protein it was cut from — 43 amino acids found in almost every cell and in the fluid of healing wounds.
Skin & Anti-Aging
Peptides studied for collagen synthesis, wound healing, and age-related tissue changes.
A naturally occurring copper peptide found in human plasma — studied for tissue remodelling, collagen synthesis, and its ability to influence over 4,000 genes.
It was not discovered in nature or cut from a known protein. It was screened computationally from a large space of candidate sequences, and it targets something no other compound here does: cells that have stopped dividing but refuse to leave.
The tub in the supermarket and the vial in the laboratory both say "peptide", and both are telling the truth. They are still almost nothing alike. The difference explains what the word actually means.
A six-amino-acid sequence found in a great many anti-wrinkle creams, marketed on a comparison to botulinum toxin. The mechanism behind the comparison is real. Whether it survives contact with skin is the harder question.
The other cosmetic peptide you will meet everywhere, and the mirror image of Argireline. Instead of interrupting a signal, it imitates one the skin sends itself after injury — and the fatty tail bolted onto it solves a problem worth understanding.
Copper is essential and copper is dangerous, and the body solves that contradiction by never letting it travel alone. Understanding why explains what a copper peptide is actually for — and why the blue colour is not a marketing choice.
Growth Hormone & Endocrine
Peptides that act on the growth hormone axis and wider endocrine signalling pathways.
A synthetic analogue of growth hormone-releasing hormone that stimulates pulsatile GH release from the pituitary gland — the foundation of the GHRH-side of growth hormone research.
A five-amino-acid ghrelin-receptor agonist studied for growth-hormone release and gastrointestinal effects. Hormonal selectivity in an experiment does not establish an absence of other effects.
A 44-amino-acid synthetic version of the body's natural GHRH — the only GHRH analogue with full FDA approval, supported by multiple Phase 3 trials. Works through the same pathway as natural GHRH, with engineered stability to last long enough to do meaningful work.
The upstream switch that tells the brain to begin puberty — and the rare research peptide whose core mechanism is genuinely mapped.
The compound that started the entire growth hormone secretagogue field. It worked through a receptor nobody could identify, which led its discoverer to insist a natural hormone must exist to explain it. Fourteen years later, ghrelin was found.
More potent than the compound that came before it, less selective than the one that came after. GHRP-2 is the second draft of the growth hormone secretagogue idea, and it shows exactly what the field was trying to solve.
The first twenty-nine amino acids of growth hormone-releasing hormone — the shortest piece that still works. CJC-1295 and Tesamorelin are both engineered versions of this molecule.
The most potent of the early growth hormone peptides, and the one whose research drifted away from growth hormone entirely — into cardiac tissue, through a receptor the rest of the family does not use.
Muscle does not only have an accelerator. It has a brake called myostatin, and follistatin is the body’s own way of easing off it.
None of these compounds are growth hormone. Every one of them is a way of asking the body to release its own — and that distinction shapes everything about how they behave.
Growth hormone does surprisingly little directly. Most of what it is credited with is carried out by IGF-1 — and LR3 is a modified version built to evade the system that normally restrains it.
The same molecule, delivered in pulses, switches a system on. Delivered continuously, it switches the same system off. This is the clearest demonstration in endocrinology that timing is not a detail of a signal — it is part of the message.
Sold on every peptide site and built quite differently from everything else on them: two separate chains, held together without a bond, wearing sugar trees that weigh nearly a third of the molecule. Those sugars are not decoration — they are why it works at all.
Mechano growth factor is not a relative of IGF-1. It is IGF-1, transcribed from the identical gene and then edited differently — an alternative reading the body produces specifically when muscle is damaged.
It appears on nearly every peptide list online. It is not a peptide, contains no amino acids, and works by a different route to the compounds it is usually listed beside. Here is what it actually is, and why the distinction changes how you read the research.
Immune & Defence
Peptides studied for immune modulation, host defence, and antimicrobial activity.
The body's own antibiotic — the single cathelicidin the human immune system makes, and a host-defence molecule that does far more than kill microbes.
One of the most-studied peptides in immunology — the thymus's own immune-balancing signal, and a modulator rather than a stimulant.
A peptide extract from thymus tissue, and one of the oldest compounds in the Khavinson family. It has been prescribed in Russia since the 1980s — which makes it unusually well observed, and unusually easy to overstate.
Discovered in the gut, named for what it did to blood vessels, and now studied mostly for immune and neurological work. VIP is a lesson in how early names stick.
Nine amino acids that are biologically inert on their own. Add a single zinc atom and the same molecule becomes active. It is the clearest case in this library of a peptide whose sequence is only half the story.
Bioregulators & Neuropeptides
Short-chain peptides studied for gene expression, brain health, and cellular regulation.
A four-amino-acid peptide derived from the pineal gland — one of the most-studied compounds in aging research, with a published research history stretching back more than 25 years.
Pinealon is the EDR tripeptide. This guide distinguishes proposed mechanisms from demonstrated findings and records a correction to an earlier unverified citation.
A seven-amino-acid peptide developed in Russia in the 1980s. Research suggests it triples BDNF expression in the hippocampus — the brain's primary growth factor for learning and memory — while leaving cortisol completely unaffected. One of the most extensively studied nootropic peptides in the literature.
A seven-amino-acid peptide developed at the same Russian institute as Semax. Where Semax targets BDNF for cognitive research, Selank targets GABA pathways for anxiolytic research. Approved as a prescription medication in Russia for generalised anxiety disorder.
A 7-amino-acid peptide derived from Spadin — one of the most potent known inhibitors of the TREK-1 potassium channel: in patch-clamp recordings (Djillani et al., 2017) it inhibits TREK-1 at more than 300-fold lower concentrations than its parent compound.
An angiotensin IV-derived research compound. A key mechanism paper was retracted in 2025, and an earlier study carries an expression of concern. This guide separates publication history from what the cited evidence can establish.
A naturally occurring nine–amino-acid peptide, first isolated from sleeping rabbits in 1977 — and still one of the more genuinely unresolved puzzles in neuroscience.
A nine-amino-acid hormone made in the brain, studied for decades as a messenger of social bonding, trust, and the stress response.
A peptide fraction taken from cortical tissue, and one of the most widely prescribed neurological products in Russia. Substantial clinical familiarity there, almost no independent verification outside it — the tension running through this whole family.
Just lysine and glutamic acid — about as short as a peptide can get and still be called one. Vilon is the synthesised answer to the thymus extract Thymalin, and a useful test of the whole bioregulator premise.
A four-amino-acid sequence aimed at liver tissue, and one of the more mechanistically interesting members of the family — because the research on it goes straight at how tightly DNA is packed.
A four-amino-acid sequence aimed at blood vessels — a tissue rarely thought of as an organ at all, despite being one of the largest in the body and among the first to show its age.
A four-amino-acid sequence aimed at cortical tissue — the defined molecule standing behind the older brain extract Cortexin.
A four-amino-acid sequence aimed at cardiac tissue — an organ with almost no capacity to replace its own cells, which is precisely why maintenance research focuses on it.
A short peptide aimed at bronchial tissue — the lining of an organ that processes thousands of litres of unfiltered air every day.
A three-amino-acid sequence studied across both lung and gut tissue — unusual in a family built on one peptide per organ, and there is a reason for it.
A three-amino-acid sequence aimed at cartilage — a tissue with no blood vessels running through it, which makes it uniquely bad at repairing itself.
A four-amino-acid sequence aimed at pancreatic tissue — an organ that runs two entirely separate operations out of the same building.
A dipeptide from the thymic line of the Khavinson programme — one of the six peptide pharmaceuticals introduced into Soviet clinical practice, and among the shortest molecules ever registered as a medicine.
Some cells stop dividing but refuse to die, lingering and causing trouble. This compound is designed to remove the excuse they are using.
A peptide extract for the retina — nerve tissue that, once lost, the body has no way of rebuilding.
A short peptide aimed at prostate tissue — one of the few organs that continues enlarging throughout adult life.
A short peptide aimed at testicular tissue — an organ that is both a factory and a thermostat, and unusually sensitive to both roles.
A short peptide aimed at ovarian tissue — an organ that, uniquely, is issued its entire lifetime stock before birth and can never make more.
A short peptide aimed at bladder tissue — home to what may be the most impermeable barrier the body builds.
Neurotransmitters are the brain shouting across a gap in milliseconds. Neuropeptides are the brain writing a longer letter — slower, broader, and lasting far longer.
Before the four-amino-acid peptide, there was a pineal extract — and most of the famous long-term animal studies were done with this, not with what replaced it.
Search for P21 and you will find thousands of papers about a cancer-related protein that has nothing to do with the compound sold under that name. Sorting that out is most of what a reader needs here.
Melanocortin Research
Peptides studied through the melanocortin receptor family — pigmentation, motivation, and arousal pathways.
A cyclic heptapeptide that acts on melanocortin receptors in the brain — one of very few compounds studied in central neural pathways for sexual response research. FDA-approved as Vyleesi in 2019, with Phase 3 trial data and a substantial regulatory evidence base.
The "tanning peptide" — a synthetic α-MSH analog whose effects, and risks, follow directly from which receptors it presses.
A linear synthetic tridecapeptide analogue of α-MSH with selective MC1R activity. The same molecule that, as the pharmaceutical afamelanotide (Scenesse), has full FDA, EMA, and TGA approval for erythropoietic protoporphyria — one of the most extensively validated melanocortin compounds in regulated medicine.
One signalling family governs skin pigment, appetite, sexual arousal, inflammation and stress hormones. Which receptor a compound binds is the whole story.