ACTH analog is one of those subjects where the details matter more than the headlines. This page pulls together the background, the mechanisms, and the practical points readers ask about most.
Last reviewed on 2026-04-09. Where a claim depends on a specific study, the study is described rather than over-claimed.
The C-terminal Pro-Gly-Pro extension is not incidental. Proline-rich tails are known to resist several common peptidases, and the published literature attributes the longer half-life of Semax, relative to unmodified ACTH fragments, to this feature. The modification also removes the melanocyte-stimulating and corticosteroidogenic activity that characterizes longer ACTH-derived sequences. Because the molecule is small and hydrophilic, it is typically formulated as an aqueous solution for intranasal or parenteral delivery. Acetylation or amidation at the termini appears in closely related research peptides and shifts the mass by a fixed increment.
Reported pharmacological work centers on neurotrophic signaling, including changes in BDNF and NGF expression in hippocampal tissue in animal models. Human data come largely from studies conducted in Russia, and how well those results generalize to other populations remains an open question. Regulatory status differs sharply by jurisdiction: Semax is a registered prescription medicine in Russia, while it holds no approved marketing status in the United States or the European Union. Outside such jurisdictions it is generally handled as a research chemical, which affects both documentation and quality expectations.
Semax is a synthetic heptapeptide whose sequence is Met-Glu-His-Phe-Pro-Gly-Pro. It was developed as a fragment analog of adrenocorticotropic hormone, modeled specifically on the ACTH(4-10) region. The first four residues reproduce that fragment, while a Pro-Gly-Pro tripeptide is appended at the C-terminus. Work on the compound originated in Russia, where it entered clinical use as an intranasal preparation. Its sequence places it among short regulatory peptides studied for effects on the central nervous system rather than on the adrenal axis.
Later generations of the molecule include an N-acetylated form and an amidated form, both marketed online alongside the parent peptide. These variants differ in terminal chemistry and stability, and they are frequently discussed in the same breath even though they have not been compared in controlled trials. Supply outside formal healthcare systems comes largely from laboratories that synthesize peptides to order. Purity and identity of these materials vary widely, and no single body oversees the international trade.
Semax is a synthetic heptapeptide developed in the Soviet Union during the 1980s by researchers at the Institute of Molecular Genetics in Moscow. It was designed as a truncated analog of adrenocorticotropic hormone, retaining only the fragment spanning residues four through ten. Investigators sought a peptide that would preserve the cognitive effects associated with ACTH while eliminating the hormonal stimulation of the adrenal cortex. The compound entered clinical use in Russia during the following decade.
| Property | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Molecular weight | ~813.9 Da (free heptapeptide) | N-acetylated form is about 42 Da heavier |
| Residue count | 7 (heptapeptide) | Four residues from ACTH(4-10), three added |
| Appearance | White to off-white powder | Usually supplied lyophilized |
| Solubility class | Freely soluble in water | Also dissolves in DMSO and polar organic solvents |
| Related parent fragment | ACTH(4-10) | Parent motif is Met-Glu-His-Phe |
Development of the compound took place in the Soviet Union during the 1980s, largely through peptide research groups affiliated with the Shemyakin-Ovchinnikov Institute and Moscow State University. Investigators screened fragments of adrenocorticotropic hormone for activity on the central nervous system while attempting to separate cognitive effects from hormonal ones. The shortened sequence was selected because it retained behavioral activity in animal models without stimulating corticosteroid release. Early publications described the molecule as an ACTH(4-10) analog.
Published research on this peptide originates mainly from Russian laboratories, and the wider international literature is comparatively thin. Studies have used rodent models of stroke, hypoxia, and memory tasks, with a smaller number of human trials reported. Reported outcomes include changes in attention and memory measures, along with effects on neurotrophic factor expression in some experiments. Small sample sizes, inconsistent dosing protocols, and limited independent replication are widely noted limitations, so the strength of the clinical evidence remains an open question.
Regulatory status differs sharply between jurisdictions. In Russia the peptide is registered as a prescription nasal preparation, while agencies such as the United States Food and Drug Administration have not approved it for any indication. Products sold elsewhere are typically labeled for laboratory research only, and such labels shift responsibility for safe handling to the purchaser. Because the same name covers pharmaceutical-grade nasal drops and bulk research powder, identity and purity documentation becomes the main practical concern when comparing sources.
Semax is a synthetic seven-amino-acid peptide whose sequence extends the ACTH(4-10) fragment with a C-terminal proline-glycine-proline tripeptide. The commonly cited sequence is Met-Glu-His-Phe-Pro-Gly-Pro, giving a molecular formula near C37H51N9O10S and a molecular weight close to 813.9 g/mol. It belongs to the broader class of synthetic ACTH fragments studied for central nervous system effects rather than for adrenal steroid stimulation. In practice the material appears as a lyophilized white powder for laboratory work or as a dilute saline solution in clinical settings.
当时的短肽研究普遍关注能否穿越血脑屏障、在低剂量下产生中枢效应，Semax 属于这一路线。鼻内给药是其主要使用方式，俄语文献报道的适应症涵盖缺血性卒中、短暂性脑缺血发作、认知功能减退以及视神经病变。这些研究大多发表在当地期刊上，样本规模与终点设置同西方试验惯例存在差异，国际同行对其临床证据的强度看法不一。
各国监管态度分化明显。俄罗斯按处方药管理，部分东欧国家留有使用记录；欧盟与美国未批准其作为药物上市，市面流通品通常标注为研究用化学品。身份差异意味着标示含量、纯度与无菌性缺少统一核查。体育领域还牵涉反兴奋剂名录，跨境携带则受目的地药品法规约束。
The compound is registered in Russia as a pharmaceutical product, most commonly formulated as a nasal solution, and has been used in that setting since the 1990s. Outside that jurisdiction it is generally handled as a research chemical rather than an approved medicine. Regulatory status therefore differs sharply between countries, and material sold internationally may not correspond to the Russian pharmaceutical formulation. Documentation with commercial samples is typically limited to a certificate of analysis covering purity and identity, not clinical status or local legal classification.
Semax is a synthetic heptapeptide with the sequence Met-Glu-His-Phe-Pro-Gly-Pro. It corresponds to the ACTH(4-7) fragment extended at the C-terminus by a Pro-Gly-Pro tripeptide, an addition intended to slow enzymatic breakdown. The molecular formula is C37H51N9O10S and the molecular mass is approximately 814 daltons. In the literature it is often described as an ACTH(4-10) analog, although that label reflects a naming convention as much as a precise structural relationship. The compound was developed in Russia and remains most closely associated with that research tradition.
=== Withdrawal === On abrupt or overly rapid discontinuation of lorazepam, anxiety, and signs of physical withdrawal have been observed, similar to those seen on withdrawal from alcohol and barbiturates. Lorazepam, as with other benzodiazepine drugs, can cause physical dependence, addiction, and benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome. The higher the dose and the longer the drug is taken, the greater the risk of experiencing unpleasant withdrawal symptoms. Withdrawal symptoms can also occur from standard dosages and after short-term use. Benzodiazepine treatment is recommended to be discontinued as soon as possible via a slow and gradual dose reduction regimen. Rebound effects often resemble the condition being treated, but typically at a more intense level and may be difficult to diagnose. Withdrawal symptoms can range from mild anxiety and insomnia to more severe symptoms such as seizures and psychosis. The risk and severity of withdrawal are increased with long-term use, use of high doses, abrupt or over-rapid reduction, among other factors. Short-acting benzodiazepines, such as lorazepam, are more likely to cause a more severe withdrawal syndrome compared to longer-acting benzodiazepines. Withdrawal symptoms can occur after taking therapeutic doses of lorazepam for as little as one week.
Castro placed the Grand Lodge of Cuba legally under the jurisprudence of the Office of Religious Affairs (OAR) (Spanish: Oficina de Asuntos Religiosos) of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba. OAR, which is responsible for regulating religion in Cuba, has often been labeled as a secret religious police by the Cuban exile community, and other advocates for religious freedom in Cuba. Other departments of the government more readily recognizable as secret police did implant agents into the Masonic Lodges of Cuba as secret informants. After the coup attempt, OAR required the Grand Lodge to regularly submit minutes of Lodge meetings and supply lists of names of those who attended meetings. If the Grand Lodge forgot to provide minutes to OAR, they would be fined.
=== Afghanistan === In Afghanistan, the residency (Dari, تخصص) consists of a three to seven years of practical and research activities in the field selected by the candidate. The graduate medical students do not need to complete the residency because they study medicine in six years (three years for clinical subjects, three years clinical subjects in hospital) and one-year internship and they graduate as general practitioner. Most students do not complete residency because it is too competitive.
==== UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs ==== On 8 March 2016 at its 59th Session, the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) added Phenazepam to relevant schedules of the Convention on Psychtropic Substances of 1971.
The therapeutic window is the amount of a medication between the amount that gives an effect (effective dose) and the amount that gives more adverse effects than desired effects. For instance, medication with a small pharmaceutical window must be administered with care and control, e.g. by frequently measuring blood concentration of the drug, since it easily loses effects or gives adverse effects.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
In particular, Maricopa County has been targeted by conspiracy theorists for alleged irregularities in how the county voted in the 2020 presidential election; the county's ballots were audited by Republicans in 2021, finding no such claims of voter fraud. Ahead of the 2023 Philadelphia mayoral election and the Pennsylvania primary election, the account for the Philadelphia City Commissioners was unverified, leading to several verified accounts impersonating the commissioners. On May 22, an account aligned with the QAnon conspiracy theory posted an image generated by artificial intelligence that seemingly depicted an explosion near the Pentagon. The fake image was amplified by the Russian propaganda television network RT and the far-right blog Zero Hedge. A verified account posing as Bloomberg News then posted the claim accompanied by several other verified accounts. The S&P 500 fell sharply as a result of the news before rebounding. Several Indian news outlets, including Zee News and Republic TV, aired false reports about the supposed explosion.
== Financial assistance == In the Union Budget for 2019–20, the Finance Minister announced ₹804.75 crore (equivalent to ₹10 billion or US$110 million in 2026) to incentivize and promote processing in the fisheries sector for the Financial year 2019–20 through the newly formed Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying. During the Budget speech, the finance minister asserted: "fishing and fishermen communities are closely aligned with farming and are crucial to rural India." The Economic Survey of India for the year 2018–19 had stressed on allied sectors and focused mainly on enhancing rural economy by strengthening Animal husbandry and Fisheries. Apart from this, the government had earlier set aside ₹7,552 crore (equivalent to ₹97 billion or US$1.0 billion in 2026) in the Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund (FIDF), which was intended to be utilized in creating both inland and overseas fishery infrastructure in the country. The government had set a target of 20 tonnes for fish production through the Blue Revolution by 2022–23. While announcing the stimulus package in the backdrop of the economic slowdown caused by the recent COVID-19 pandemic in India, the Finance Minister announced ₹20,000 crore (equivalent to ₹260 billion or US$2.7 billion in 2026) outlay to enhance the inland fisheries through Matsya Sampada Yojana.
=== Early studies in Prague laboratory === Kopeček's graduate research focused on the kinetics of crosslinking polymerization of hydrophilic esters of methacrylic acid and structural characterization of ensuing hydrogels. This was followed by the investigation of the relationship between the chemical and physical structure of hydrogels and their biocompatibility. This formed the basis for the translation of hydrogels based on crosslinked poly(ethyleneglycol monomethacrylate) into the clinics. The next focus was the design of water-soluble polymer-drug conjugates based on the copolymers of N-(2-hydroxypropyl)methacrylamide (HPMA). Kopeček and coworkers formulated and implemented a comprehensive approach to the problems designing macromolecular conjugates to modulate the pharmacokinetics and tissue localization of therapeutic agents.
A protein is represented by a three-dimensional open chain, and determining whether that chain contains a mathematical knot requires the chain to be closed by an auxiliary procedure. The result can depend on how the closure is performed, particularly for shallow knots or chains with complicated geometry. AlphaKnot therefore provides both probabilistic and deterministic closure procedures and reports the resulting knot type together with additional information about the location of the knotted region. AlphaKnot was initially developed to analyze the rapidly growing number of protein structures predicted by AlphaFold. The expansion of structure-prediction databases made it possible to search for protein knots on a scale that was not practical using experimentally determined structures alone.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
== Licensing == A New Drug Application for saxagliptin in the treatment of type 2 diabetes was submitted to the FDA in June 2008. It was based on a drug development program with 8 randomized trials: 1 phase 2 dose-ranging (2.5–100 mg/d) study; 6 phase 3, 24-week controlled trials with additional controlled follow-up from 12 to 42 months, double-blinded throughout; and one 12-week mechanism-of-action trial with a 2-year follow-up period. The FDA approved saxagliptin with brand name Onglyza on July 31, 2009. Saxagliptin was licensed for use throughout the European Union by the European Medicines Agency on December 1, 2009. Bristol-Myers Squibb announced on 27 December 2006 that Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. has been granted exclusive rights to develop and commercialize the compound in Japan. Under the licensing agreement, Otsuka will be responsible for all development costs, but Bristol-Myers Squibb retains rights to co-promote saxagliptin with Otsuka in Japan. Further, on 11 January 2007 it was announced that Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca would work together to complete development of the drug and in subsequent marketing.
There is evidence to suggest that excitatory amino acids like quisqualic acid play a significant role in the induction of cell death following stroke, hypoxia-ischemia, and traumatic brain injury . Studies involving the binding of quisqualic acid have indicated that the amino acid does not show selectivity for a singular specific receptor subtype, which was initially identified as the quisqualate receptor. Instead, it demonstrates high affinity for other types of excitatory amino acid receptors, including kainate, AMPA, and metabotropic receptors, as well as some transport sites, such as the chloride-dependent L-AP4-sensitive sites. In addition, it also exhibits affinity for certain enzymes responsible for cleaving dipeptides, including the enzyme responsible for cleaving N-acetyl-aspartylglutamate (NAALADase) . Regarding bioavailability, no database information is present, as there is limited research on its pharmacokinetics. However, even though the bioavailability is not well established, studies in rats suggest that age may play a role in the presence of administered quisqualic acid effects. An experiment which was done on rats within two age groups (20-days-old and 60-days-old) showed that, when given quisqualic acid microinjections, 60-day-old rats had more seizures compared to the younger rats. Additionally, the rats were given the same amount of quisqualic acid, however the immature animals received a higher dosage per body weight, implying that the harm inflicted by the excitatory amino acid may have been comparatively lower in the younger animals.
=== Political trends and results === Several politicians have spent part of their lives in the city: Jules Lecesne (1818–1878), Jules Siegfried (1837–1922), and Félix Faure (1841–1899) were elected as municipal councillors and MPs. A pool, a shopping centre and a street have been named after René Coty from Le Havre, who served as President of the French Republic from 1954 to 1959. Christine Lagarde (born 1956) attended high schools in Le Havre before becoming Minister of the Economy and Director-General of the International Monetary Fund in 2011. Since 23 October 2010 the mayor has been Édouard Philippe (UMP). He also holds the presidency of the CODAH and has held a seat in the National Assembly for the 7th district of Seine-Maritime since 2012. He succeeded Antoine Rufenacht (UMP), who was mayor of Le Havre for fifteen years before resigning, as the head of the municipality. The city of Le Havre has long been the strongest bastion of the Communist Party of France, who directed it from 1956 to 1995. Overall, the inhabitants of Le Havre in the 7th electoral district (city centre and western neighbourhoods) tend to vote for the right while those of the 8th electoral district (eastern neighbourhoods) tend to choose the candidate of the left. For example, in the presidential election of 2007, the 7th electoral district voted for Nicolas Sarkozy (UMP) by 55.05% against 44.95% for Ségolène Royal (PS) while in the 8th electoral district 55.02% voted for the Socialist candidate.
=== In traditional societies === Fragments of Nolina species have been recovered from various archaeological sites, though their remains haven't been identified to species level. For example, basketry fragments from caves in western Texas, as well as Nolina remains from various other archaeological sites throughout the greater part of the dry Southwestern United States, have been found. Nolina lindheimeriana contains rotenone, which in many societies has been used as fish poison when fishing for food, and as an insecticide. However, it's been documented that Nolina microcara flowering stalks were cooked on open coals for half an hour, peeled and eaten by the Western Apache people. It's known that rotenone is degraded by high heat.
== Contamination and response in 2009–2010 == On 2 December 2009, China detained three employees of Shaanxi Jinqiao Dairy Company in northwest China suspected of selling 5.25 tons of melamine-laced powdered milk to Nanning Yueqian Food Additive Company, in Guangxi. On 30 December 2009, Xinhua reported continuing problems: powder and flavouring products sold by another company involved in the original scandal–the Shanghai Panda Dairy Company–were found to contain illegal levels of melamine; the dairy was closed and three of its executives arrested. On 25 January 2010, it was reported that three food companies from Hebei, Liaoning and Shandong provinces had produced melamine tainted products in March and April 2009 and that the three companies were banned from selling products in Guizhou. On 10 February 2010 China's state council announced a food safety commission, consisting of three vice premiers and a dozen minister-level officials, to address the nation's food regulatory problems. The group aims to improve government coordination and enforcement and to solve systemic food safety problems. As part of its ongoing effort to find and destroy any melamine-tainted milk remaining on the market, the Chinese government announced that it was recalling 170 tons of powdered milk laced with the industrial chemical which was supposed to have been destroyed or buried in 2008 but has recently found to have been repackaged and placed back into the marketplace.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
The sequence is Met-Glu-His-Phe-Pro-Gly-Pro, a seven-residue peptide. The first four residues correspond to the ACTH(4-10) fragment, and Pro-Gly-Pro is added at the C-terminus. N-acetylated versions also appear in the literature and differ in mass.
Semax is a synthetic analog of the ACTH(4-10) fragment rather than a copy of the full hormone. Truncation plus the added tail removes the steroidogenic portion of ACTH. That distinction explains why it is studied for nervous-system effects instead of adrenal stimulation.
It is registered as a prescription product in Russia and has been used there clinically, chiefly by the intranasal route. No approval exists in the United States or the European Union. Availability elsewhere typically falls under research-chemical distribution, with varying purity documentation.
It originated at the Institute of Molecular Genetics in Moscow during the 1980s. The work was carried out by a Russian research group that specialized in peptide neuropharmacology.