Summary
Thymogen is a synthetic two-amino-acid peptide, glutamic acid joined to tryptophan, identified in the 1980s as an active component of thymalin, a calf-thymus extract. It belongs to the series of short 'bioregulator' peptides developed by Vladimir Khavinson's institute in St Petersburg. It has been registered as an immunomodulating drug in Russia since 1990. It is not a licensed medicine in the UK, US or Australia.
What it targets
The developers describe Thymogen as promoting T-cell differentiation and regulating cytokine production. Evidence linked here: a rat study in which a year of injections was associated with longer maximum lifespan and fewer spontaneous tumours in 76 female rats; a cell-line study in which Thymogen and four related peptides reduced inflammatory cytokine expression in human monocytes; and a 2021 review from the originating group. A separate paper concerns Thymodepressin, the mirror-image (D-amino-acid) form of the same dipeptide, which the authors report has the opposite, immunosuppressive effect in mice. Most published work is from the developers.
Clinical Research
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