Everything below concerns nootropic. We keep the language plain, cite what the science says, and separate well-supported claims from open questions.
Last reviewed on 2025-12-29. Where a claim depends on a specific study, the study is described rather than over-claimed.
Outside its country of origin the compound is generally handled as a research chemical rather than an approved medicine. No regulatory approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration or the European Medicines Agency has been granted for human use. Identity and purity are normally checked by reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography, with mass spectrometry used to confirm the molecular mass. Lyophilised material is stored cold and desiccated, and repeated freeze-thaw cycles are avoided.
Published work on this peptide almost always uses intranasal delivery, with drops or a spray applied to the nasal mucosa. Some animal experiments have used subcutaneous or intraperitoneal injection, and a smaller number have compared routes directly. Oral administration is not a focus of the literature, because short peptides of this size are broken down by digestive enzymes and cross intestinal barriers poorly. How much of an intranasal dose reaches the bloodstream intact in humans remains an open question.
Naming conventions place Selank in the same research family as Semax, another Russian-developed peptide investigated for cognitive effects. The two compounds share a lineage but differ in sequence and in the biological systems proposed as their targets. Semax descends from ACTH fragments, whereas Selank descends from tuftsin. Publications sometimes identify Selank by its full peptide sequence or by laboratory codes rather than one uniform trade name. Because replication outside Russia is limited, reports on its properties are best read alongside the study design and the purity of the material tested.
Selank is a synthetic heptapeptide developed in Russia during the 1990s. Researchers at the Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences designed it as a stabilized analog of tuftsin, a naturally occurring immunomodulatory tetrapeptide. The compound has been studied primarily for its reported anxiolytic and nootropic effects. It remains largely unknown in Western pharmacology and is not approved as a medicine by major regulators such as the FDA or the EMA.
| Property | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Common route | Intranasal | Also injected in some animal work |
| Solubility class | Freely soluble in water | Solid form is hygroscopic |
| Typical storage | About -20 degrees Celsius | Keep desiccated and dark |
| Purity method | Reverse-phase HPLC | Reported as area percent |
| Confirmatory method | Mass spectrometry | Verifies expected molecular mass |
Reported activity for Selank centers on anxiolytic and nootropic effects. Russian clinical reports describe use in anxiety and in cognitive or attention-related complaints. Most of this evidence comes from studies conducted by the same research groups that developed the peptide. Independent replication in other countries remains limited, and no major Western regulatory agency has approved the compound for any indication. The gap between local reports and external verification is a recurring point in discussions of the peptide.
Tuftsin, the parent structure, is a naturally occurring immunomodulatory tetrapeptide released from the Fc region of immunoglobulin G by spleen enzymes. Selank extends this four-residue sequence with three additional amino acids. The stated rationale is that the added tail slows enzymatic breakdown and may influence receptor interactions. How the full heptapeptide behaves at the molecular level is not firmly established, and proposed mechanisms often involve indirect modulation of neurotransmitter or immune signaling rather than a single defined target.
Selank is a synthetic heptapeptide developed in Russia. Its sequence is Thr-Lys-Pro-Arg-Pro-Gly-Pro, a seven-residue chain built around the natural tetrapeptide tuftsin. Researchers at the Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences first described the compound in the mid-1990s. The design combined the tuftsin core with an added Pro-Gly-Pro tail, a modification intended to extend the molecule's stability in biological fluids. Published work on the peptide has appeared mainly in Russian-language journals.
Quality assessment of Selank samples typically combines purity determination with identity confirmation and counter-ion analysis. Purity is usually reported as a percentage by chromatographic area, with values above 95 percent often quoted for research-grade material. Water content and residual solvents are checked in lyophilized batches because they affect both stability and accurate mass determination. A reported purity figure does not by itself establish that a sample is the intended sequence, so orthogonal methods are needed to rule out sequence isomers or truncation products.
Characterization of Selank in laboratory settings relies on standard peptide analytical techniques. Reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography separates the peptide from related impurities and degradation products, while mass spectrometry confirms molecular identity through accurate mass measurement. Amino acid analysis and peptide sequencing verify the primary structure when reference material is unavailable. Because Selank is a short chain, fragmentation-based analysis produces a diagnostic ion pattern that supports confident identification.
Lyophilized Selank, the dry powder form, is generally stored frozen at minus 20 degrees Celsius or colder for long-term keeping. The solid is hygroscopic and should stay sealed, dry, and protected from light. Once dissolved, the peptide is less stable and is usually held refrigerated at 2 to 8 degrees Celsius for short periods. Repeated freezing and thawing is avoided because it can promote aggregation and loss of activity. Buffers and pH choice also affect how long a solution remains usable.
Solubility behavior is a practical concern for handling. Selank dissolves readily in water and in common aqueous buffers, which simplifies preparation of working solutions. The choice of solvent, ionic strength, and pH can influence aggregation over time, particularly at higher concentrations. Aqueous solutions are typically sterile-filtered before use. Because stability depends on several variables, storage and handling notes should be treated as general guidance rather than fixed rules, and specific values are best confirmed against a certificate of analysis for each batch.
Selank is a synthetic heptapeptide developed in Russia as a structural analogue of tuftsin, a naturally occurring immunomodulatory tetrapeptide. Its sequence, Thr-Lys-Pro-Arg-Pro-Gly-Pro, keeps the tuftsin core at the N-terminus and appends a Pro-Gly-Pro tail. Researchers at the Institute of Molecular Genetics in Moscow synthesized the compound during the 1990s while searching for peptides with combined anxiolytic and immunomodulatory activity. The added tail was intended to resist enzymatic cleavage and prolong the molecule's presence in circulation.
The compound has a calculated molecular weight near 751.9 daltons and carries a net positive charge at physiological pH because of its arginine residue. It dissolves freely in water and in common aqueous buffers, and typically appears as a white or off-white lyophilized powder. The amide backbone makes the molecule susceptible to peptidases, which limits oral use and favors intranasal or parenteral routes. Nomenclature in the literature varies: the substance is also described by the sequence abbreviation TP-7 and by a Russian trade designation.
== Natural occurrence == Accurate measurements, beginning in the early 1970s, appeared to detect primordial plutonium-244, making it the shortest-lived primordial nuclide. As the age of the Earth is about 56 half-lives of 244Pu, the amount of 244Pu left should be very small; Hoffman et al. estimated its content in the rare-earth mineral bastnasite as c244 = 1.0×10−18 g/g, which corresponded to the content in the Earth crust as low as 3×10−25 g/g (i.e. the total mass of plutonium-244 in Earth's crust is about 9 g). Since 244Pu cannot be easily produced by natural neutron capture in the low neutron activity environment of uranium ores (see below), its presence cannot plausibly be explained by any other means than creation by r-process nucleosynthesis in supernovae or neutron star mergers. However, the detection of primordial 244Pu in 1971 is not confirmed by recent, more sensitive measurements using accelerator mass spectrometry. In a 2012 study, no traces of 244Pu in the samples of bastnasite (taken from the same mine as in the early study) were observed, so only an upper limit on the 244Pu content was obtained: c244 < 1.5×10−19 g/g: 370 (or fewer) atoms per gram of the sample, at least seven times lower than the abundance measured by Hoffman et al. A 2022 study, once again using accelerator mass spectrometry, could not detect 244Pu in Bayan Obo bastnasite, finding an upper limit of < 2.1×10−20 g/g (about seven times lower than the 2012 study). Thus, the 1971 detection cannot have been a signal of primordial 244Pu.
However, the advent of biologic therapeutics has also raised complex regulatory issues (see below), and significant pharmacoeconomic concerns because the cost for biologic therapies has been dramatically higher than for conventional (pharmacological) medications. This factor has been particularly relevant since many biological medications are used to treat chronic diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis or inflammatory bowel disease, or for the treatment of otherwise untreatable cancer during the remainder of life. The cost of treatment with a typical monoclonal antibody therapy for relatively common indications is generally in the range of €7,000–14,000 per patient per year. Older patients who receive biologic therapy for diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, or ankylosing spondylitis are at increased risk for life-threatening infection, adverse cardiovascular events, and malignancy. The first such substance approved for therapeutic use was biosynthetic "human" insulin made via recombinant DNA. Sometimes referred to as rHI, under the trade name Humulin, was developed by Genentech, but licensed to Eli Lilly and Company, who manufactured and marketed it starting in 1982. Major kinds of biopharmaceuticals include:
(2026) describe molars of Helarctos malayanus praemalayanus from the Pleistocene strata of the Tham Hai Cave (Vietnam), and interpret the fossil record from Southeast Asia as indicative of larger body size of Middle Pleistocene sun bears compared to their extant relatives. Probable fossil material of the Asian black bear, representing the first known record of a member of this lineage from northeastern Iberian Peninsula, is described from the Middle Pleistocene strata from Llers Quarry (Spain) by Rufí et al. (2026). Gutiérrez-Carbajal et al. (2026) reconstruct the evolutionary history of cave bears from southwestern Europe on the basis of data from enamel proteomic analysis, recovering Ursus dolinensis as a basal member of the cave bear lineage. Kochnev et al. (2026) study the variation of the size and shape of the hard palate and choanae of Ursus kanivetz and Ursus rossicus, and report possible evidence of a link between the hard palate form and the climate. A study on the ecology of cave bears from Galería 1 inside the Cueva de Guantes (Palencia, Spain) as indicated by isotopic composition of tooth enamel and bone collagen is published by Rodríguez-Franco et al. (2026). Hasegawa et al. (2026) study the distribution of brown bears in the Japanese Archipelago during the Late Pleistocene, reporting remains of exceptionally large individuals from Aomori, Nagano, Shizuoka and Oita. Estraviz-López et al.
== Causes == The most common cause of cauliflower ear is blunt trauma to the ear leading to a hematoma which, if left untreated, eventually heals to give the distinct appearance of cauliflower ear. Participating in contact sports and martial arts is a typical source of such trauma. The structure of the ear is supported by a cartilaginous scaffold consisting of the following distinct components: the helix, antihelix, concha, tragus, and antitragus. The skin that covers this cartilage is extremely thin with virtually no subcutaneous fat while also strongly attached to the perichondrium, which is richly vascularized to supply the avascular cartilage. Cauliflower ear can also present in the setting of nontraumatic inflammatory injury of auricular connective tissue such as in relapsing polychondritis (RP), a rare rheumatologic disorder in which recurrent episodes of inflammation result in destruction of cartilage of the ears and nose. Joints, eyes, audiovestibular system, cardiovascular system, and respiratory tract can also be involved.
== Prognosis == As of March 2020, only 50 cases of CMRD have been documented in the medical literature. This small number speaks to the rarity of the disease as well as the lack of thorough research and documentation. As a result, the full course of the disease, life expectancy, and mortality are also poorly documented. Clinical manifestation of CMRD symptoms begin during infancy and early childhood but may go undetected due to the non-specific symptoms associated with the disease. Many of these symptoms can be attributed to malnutrition and nonspecific postnatal diarrhea, confounding early diagnosis. Careful regulation of diet and nutrition are required for management of CMRD since the disease results from the poor absorption of nutrients from food.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
== President of the Council of Ministers of Togo (2025–present) == In 2024, Togo's parliament approved changes to the constitution which converted the country's presidential system to a parliamentary one, stripping off most of the powers of the presidency and making it a ceremonial role and as well as lowering the presidential term from five years to four with re-election permitted just once. The role of the prime minister was renamed President of the Council of Ministers, with most of the powers previously associated with the president being transferred to the role, thus making the President of the Council of Ministers the most powerful person in the country with the most governing authority. The new form of government was known as the Fifth Republic of Togo. The new system took effect on 3 May 2025, where Gnassingbé was sworn in as President of the Council of Ministers, with Jean-Lucien Savi de Tové, a former opposition figure to Gnassingbé's father, being elected by the entire National Assembly and as well as 37 members of the Senate to succeed Gnassingbé as the country's first ceremonial president. The reforms were criticized by the opposition as an attempt for Gnassingbé to remain in power, given the fact that the president of the Council of Ministers has no term limits. They also said that Gnassingbé transferred to this role in an attempt to keep his family's dominance over the country. In June 2025, shortly after Gnassingbé became president of the Council of Ministers, mass protests were held by youth leaders against Gnassingbé, calling for his resignation.
=== Lewis acid === SO3 is a strong Lewis acid readily forming adducts with Lewis bases. With pyridine, it gives the sulfur trioxide pyridine complex. Related adducts form from dioxane and trimethylamine.
Ubiquitin (originally, ubiquitous immunopoietic polypeptide) was first identified in 1975 as an 8.6 kDa protein expressed in all eukaryotic cells. The basic functions of ubiquitin and the components of the ubiquitylation pathway were elucidated in the early 1980s at the Technion by Aaron Ciechanover, Avram Hershko, and Irwin Rose for which the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded in 2004. The ubiquitylation system was initially characterised as an ATP-dependent proteolytic system present in cellular extracts. A heat-stable polypeptide present in these extracts, ATP-dependent proteolysis factor 1 (APF-1), was found to become covalently attached to the model protein substrate lysozyme in an ATP- and Mg2+-dependent process. Multiple APF-1 molecules were linked to a single substrate molecule by an isopeptide linkage, and conjugates were found to be rapidly degraded with the release of free APF-1. Soon after APF-1-protein conjugation was characterised, APF-1 was identified as ubiquitin. The carboxyl group of the C-terminal glycine residue of ubiquitin (Gly76) was identified as the moiety conjugated to substrate lysine residues.
In 1998, he voted for a bill that would have increased minimum sentencing for possessing a gun while committing a federal crime to ten years in prison, including nonviolent crimes such as marijuana possession. In 2005, Sanders voted for the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. The purpose of the act was to prevent firearms manufacturers and dealers from being held liable for negligence when crimes have been committed with their products. As of 2016, he said that he has since changed his position and would vote for legislation to defeat this bill.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
=== Signs === There are many different signs of dehydration in undernourished people. These can include sunken eyes; a very dry mouth; decreased urine output or dark urine; increased heart rate with decreasing blood pressure; and altered mental status.
The French Wars of Religion in the 16th century and the French Revolution in the 18th successively destroyed much of what existed in the way of the architectural and artistic remnant of this Norman creativity. The former, with their violence, caused the wanton destruction of many Norman edifices; the latter, with its assault on religion, caused the purposeful destruction of religious objects of any type, and its destabilisation of society resulted in rampant pillaging. By far the most famous work of Norman art is the Bayeux Tapestry, which is not a tapestry but a work of embroidery. It was commissioned by Odo, the Bishop of Bayeux and first Earl of Kent, employing natives from Kent who were learned in the Nordic traditions imported in the previous half century by the Danish Vikings. In Britain, Norman art primarily survives as stonework or metalwork, such as capitals and baptismal fonts. In southern Italy, however, Norman artwork survives plentifully in forms strongly influenced by its Greek, Lombard, and Arab forebears. Of the royal regalia preserved in Palermo, the crown is Germanic and Byzantine in style and the coronation cloak is of Arab craftsmanship with Arabic inscriptions. Many churches preserve sculptured fonts, capitals, and more importantly mosaics, which were common in Norman Italy and drew heavily on the Greek heritage. Lombard Salerno was a centre of ivorywork in the 11th century and this continued under Norman domination.
Specifically, calcification in corals takes place within specialized vesicles inside cells or at the interface between the calicoblastic ectoderm and the growing skeleton. This process is precisely regulated to control the formation and orientation of calcium carbonate crystals. The Skeletal Organic Matrix (SOM), primarily composed of proteins secreted by the calicoblastic ectoderm, plays a central role in this regulation. Among these proteins, CARPs (coral acid-rich proteins) and SAPs (skeletal aspartic acid-rich proteins) facilitate the transport of calcium ions (Ca2+) toward the calcifying space. Importantly, carbonate precipitation in the calicoblastic space is not solely governed by the aragonite saturation state (
=== Monitoring === Long-term monitoring of those with coeliac disease is an important aspect of managing the disease. Usually, someone newly diagnosed with coeliac disease is advised to visit their doctor multiple times a year, with follow-ups becoming less frequent (once or twice a year) after initial diagnosis. After the diagnosis, follow-up doctor's appointments focus on controlling symptoms, improving compliance with the GFD, preventative care, monitoring for comorbid diseases, and detection of complications. The exact testing done depends on an individual's needs but may include a complete blood count, iron panel, thyroid testing, liver enzymes, and vitamin D levels. Due to osteoporosis being a common complication of coeliac disease, bone mineral density may be tested with a DEXA scan. Although negative anti-TG2 IgA tests do not always correlate with adherence to a GFD, guidelines recommend routine testing for anti-TG2 IgA, as positive values may indicate gluten intake. The role of repeat biopsies is controversial, with studies finding little evidence that it is beneficial outside of investigating persistent symptoms Alongside routine vaccinations, current guidelines recommend pneumococcal vaccination due to increased risk of pneumonia in coeliac disease.
== Screening == In the US, the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) publishes guidelines recommending preventive screening for certain types of common cancers and other diseases. As of March 2019, the USPSTF does not recommend screening for sarcoma, possibly because it is a very rare type of cancer (see Epidemiology below). The American Cancer Society (ACS) also publishes guidelines recommending preventive screening for certain types of common cancers. Like the USPSTF, as of March 2019 ACS does not recommend preventive screening for sarcoma. However, patients with some inherited conditions, such as neurofibromatosis, may benefit from screening for development of cancers from pre-existing benign tumors called neurofibromas.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
Most published work uses intranasal application, either as drops or as a nasal spray. Injection routes appear in a smaller set of animal experiments. Oral use is uncommon in the literature because peptide breakdown and poor absorption limit this route.
Reported human trials are few, brief and originate mainly from one country. They describe effects on anxiety-related measures, but sample sizes are small and reporting is limited. The results are widely regarded as preliminary rather than confirmed.
Reverse-phase liquid chromatography is used to assess purity and separation of related impurities. Mass spectrometry confirms that the observed molecular mass matches the expected peptide. A certificate of analysis from the supplier is the usual document of record.
Selank is a synthetic heptapeptide designed as a stabilized analog of the natural tetrapeptide tuftsin. It has been investigated mainly for anxiolytic and cognitive effects. It is not an approved pharmaceutical in most countries.