semax comes up often in conversation and rarely with the context attached. Here we lay out the basics in order, then work through the practical considerations.
Last reviewed on 2026-01-05. Where a claim depends on a specific study, the study is described rather than over-claimed.
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.
Laboratory descriptions of the material are consistent across suppliers. It appears as a white to off-white lyophilized powder that dissolves readily in water and in polar organic solvents such as dimethyl sulfoxide. Aqueous solutions are clear and colorless at low concentrations. Because the peptide contains methionine, oxidation at the sulfur atom is a recognized degradation pathway, and handling notes usually call for protected, desiccated storage. Reported purity for research-grade lots is generally above 95 percent as measured by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography.
Published studies are dominated by animal models of stroke, ischemia, and cognitive impairment, with a smaller number of human trials conducted in Russia. Many of the human reports are small, single-center, and published in Russian-language journals, which limits independent scrutiny. Outcome measures vary between studies and often rely on clinician-rated scales rather than objective biomarkers. Systematic reviews have noted the methodological weaknesses and called for larger, preregistered trials before firm conclusions can be drawn.
Claims about enhanced focus, memory, or mood in healthy people rest mostly on anecdotal reports and community discussion rather than on controlled data. It remains unclear whether any cognitive benefit observed in patients recovering from brain injury would extend to uninjured users. Dose-response relationships, long-term safety, and interactions with other drugs are not well characterized in the peer-reviewed literature. Questions about optimal route of administration and treatment duration likewise remain open.
Semax binds to melanocortin receptors and is thought to influence neuronal survival and plasticity rather than to act through the adrenal axis. Laboratory work has shown increased expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor and nerve growth factor in treated tissue. Changes in c-Fos, a marker of neuronal activation, have also been reported. Because the peptide is rapidly degraded by peptidases, its effects are generally attributed to downstream signaling cascades rather than to sustained receptor occupancy.
| Property | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Molecular formula | C37H51N9O10S | Contains one methionine sulfur atom |
| Molecular mass | Approximately 814 Da | Consistent with a seven-residue peptide |
| Appearance | White to off-white powder | Typical lyophilized form |
| Solubility | Freely soluble in water | Also soluble in dimethyl sulfoxide |
| Typical storage | -20 °C, desiccated | Limits methionine oxidation |
Clinical evidence consists largely of small trials with modest sample sizes, often without independent replication. Reported endpoints include cognitive scores, recovery after stroke, and visual function, but study designs vary widely and few trials meet contemporary reporting standards. Systematic reviewers have noted a high risk of bias in several of these reports. No large multicenter trial conducted outside Russia has been published. The compound is therefore best described as investigational in most jurisdictions, with its clinical role still unresolved.
Semax is a synthetic heptapeptide with the sequence Met-Glu-His-Phe-Pro-Gly-Pro. Its chain combines the first seven residues of corticotropin with a C-terminal proline-glycine-proline extension, a modification intended to slow enzymatic breakdown. The free peptide has a molecular mass near 813.9 daltons. It belongs to the class of ACTH-derived fragments studied for central nervous system activity rather than for adrenal steroid stimulation. This structural relationship to a natural hormone fragment is the usual starting point for describing the compound in the literature.
纯度评估以反相高效液相色谱为主，通过主峰面积百分比给出粗略结果，再配合电喷雾质谱核对分子量。氨基酸分析可验证组成比例，手性色谱或毛细管电泳用于检查残基构型。常见杂质包括缺失序列的短肽、氧化产物与二聚体。由于多数市售品不附带完整检验报告，独立第三方检测常被用来核实标称值。
从分子层面看，Semax 是线性七肽，没有二硫键、糖基或脂链修饰，N 端为游离氨基，C 端为游离羧基。分子含组氨酸与谷氨酸侧链，因此在水和甲醇等极性溶剂中溶解良好，在非极性溶剂中溶解有限。计算分子量约为 814 Da，与其质子化离子的质荷比吻合，可用于质谱确认。
Terminology around the compound varies by source. It appears in catalogues and papers as Semax, as the heptapeptide ACTH(4-7)-Pro-Gly-Pro, and under various alphanumeric laboratory codes used by individual suppliers. These names refer to the same sequence but may imply different salt forms, purity grades, or counter-ions. Peptide databases usually list the free base mass, while product descriptions sometimes report acetate or trifluoroacetate salts with a different formula weight. Because naming conventions for research peptides are not standardised across vendors, checking the declared sequence and measured mass is more reliable than relying on a trade name alone.
Semax is a synthetic heptapeptide with the sequence Met-Glu-His-Phe-Pro-Gly-Pro. Its design combines the ACTH(4-7) core fragment with a C-terminal Pro-Gly-Pro extension, a modification intended to improve stability and prolong activity. The molecule is hydrophilic, carries no lipid chains or glycosylation, and has a theoretical mass just over 810 daltons in its free form. All seven residues are proteinogenic amino acids, so no non-natural building blocks appear in the backbone. A free N-terminal methionine and C-terminal proline define the unmodified parent peptide.
The compound was developed during the 1980s at the Institute of Molecular Genetics in Moscow as part of research on fragments of adrenocorticotropic hormone. Early work examined short ACTH-derived sequences that retained neurotrophic effects while lacking the endocrine activity of the full hormone. Semax entered clinical use in Russia during the 1990s, where it received registration for several neurological indications. Outside that region it remained primarily a laboratory research material rather than an approved therapeutic. English-language literature on it grew more slowly and frequently cited the original Russian studies.
常规纯度与身份确认依赖反相高效液相色谱，并辅以质谱测定分子量。氨基酸组成分析可用于验证序列构成，肽图分析则能进一步定位修饰或降解产物。杂质谱通常关注缺失序列肽、截短片段和氧化产物。不同方法的检出限并不相同，因此各实验室报告的纯度数值不宜直接横向比较。
多数实验室与市售的 Semax 以冻干粉形式提供。冻干粉通常建议保存在 -20 °C 或更低温度下，同时避免光照与反复升温。短期运输有时采用冷藏条件，但长期保存仍以冷冻为主。分包操作应尽量减少开盖次数，以降低吸湿和微生物污染的风险。开封后若未一次用完，建议在干燥环境中密封并尽快放回低温储存。
溶液状态的稳定性明显低于冻干粉。肽类在水溶液中可能经历水解、氧化与聚集，其中甲硫氨酸和天冬酰胺等残基常是敏感位点。Semax 含有甲硫氨酸，因此氧化风险相对突出。工作液一般主张现配现用，或冷藏并在数日内用尽。缓冲液种类、pH 和离子强度都会影响降解速率，而关于最佳条件的公开数据并不统一。
Fabrication and coating of nanodevices and medical implants to increase biocompatibility. Emulsifiers in food industry and personal care products. Hydrophobins' high stability can be very useful in the coating of surfaces of prolonged use or under harsh conditions. The easy dissociation of a class II hydrophobin monolayer might be desirable and this can easily be achieved by the use of detergents and alcohols. The use of hydrophobins in protein purification, drug delivery and cell attachment has been reported. For more about the potential biotechnological applications of hydrophobins see Hektor & Scholtmeijer (2005) and Cox & Hooley (2009).
==== Safety concerns ==== The European Commission's Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS) issued an official opinion in 2021, where it considered whether the nanomaterial hydroxyapatite was safe when used in leave-on and rinse-off dermal and oral cosmetic products, taking into account reasonably foreseeable exposure conditions. It stated:
Later, the researchers compared a few mercaptoacyl amino acid inhibitors and concluded that the binding of the inhibitor to the enzyme involved a hydrogen bond between a donor site on the enzyme and the oxygen of the amide carbonyl, much like predicted for the substrates.
== Premise == A mysterious man who can turn into a gaseous form appears and calls himself "the Human Vapor". The Human Vapor kills a professor on live television and announces that he intends to kill everyone involved with an organization called "the White Center". Detective Kenji Okamoto is tasked with investigating the murders. Meanwhile, Kenji's ex-girlfriend Kyoko Kono runs her own investigation into the White Room's connection with a meteorite crash 27 years in the past and the cleanup of the contaminated crash site. Kyoko and Kenji find themselves crossing paths during their investigations as they unravel the conspiracy.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
== Cultivation == In Siddha medicine, it is known as kostum. It is being cultivated in Kashmir and the Himalayan regions for its root. It is related to the gingers and was originally part of the family Zingiberaceae. The plant grows very quickly. Propagation is by stem cutting. It needs sunshine but it also grows in slightly shady areas. It is cultivated in India for its use in traditional medicine and elsewhere as an ornamental.
=== Hospitals === The Assistance Publique–Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP) preserves numerous archives, some dating back to the Middle Ages. The oldest hospitalization registers—approximately one million pages—have been digitized and made available online. “Population registers” document admissions, discharges, births, and deaths. Each hospital maintains two types of annual records: alphabetical indexes to locate individuals and chronological registers specifying civil status, reasons for admission, and, in some cases, causes of death.
== Microorganisms == In bacteria and fungi, the sulfur assimilation pathway is similar to that in plants, where inorganic sulfate is reduced to sulfide, and then incorporated into cysteine and other sulfur-containing compounds. Bacteria and fungi can absorb inorganic sulfate from the environment through a sulfate transporter, which is regulated by the presence of sulfate in the medium. Once inside the cell, sulfate is activated by ATP sulfurylase to form adenosine 5'-phosphosulfate (APS), which is then reduced to sulfite by APS reductase. Sulfite is further reduced to sulfide by sulfite reductase, which is then incorporated into cysteine by enzyme. Cysteine, once synthesized, can be used for the biosynthesis of methionine and other important biomolecules. In addition, microorganisms also use sulfur-containing compounds for various other purposes, such as the synthesis of antibiotics. Sulfur assimilation in microorganisms is regulated by a variety of environmental factors, including the availability of sulfur in the medium and the presence of other nutrients. The activity of key enzymes in the sulfur assimilation pathway is also regulated by feedback inhibition from downstream products, similar to the regulation seen in plants.
For example, lung resistance-related proteins, otherwise referred to as major vault proteins, are located on the nuclear membrane of cells and typically mediate nucleocytoplasmic transport. Here, the regulation of compounds between the nucleus and cytoplasm is a process that can be overexpressed by cancer cells to transport DNA-targeted chemotherapeutic drugs away from the nucleus, and essentially restrict these drugs from successfully interacting with their targets. Without reducing the total intracellular chemotherapeutic drug concentration, cancer cells have developed mechanisms to successfully dismantle drug-target interactions and confer resistance to multiple chemotherapeutic drugs. An additional mechanism of resistance interfering with drug-target interaction can be demonstrated by mutations in genes that encode for drug target proteins, such as tubulin. Broadly, tubulin proteins make up intracellular structures known as microtubules that play a fundamental role in cellular shape, division, signaling, and movement, thus making them a particular promising site of target for chemotherapeutic drugs. By altering or inhibiting microtubule dynamics in cancer cells, drugs can prohibit successfully cell division and induce the direct activation of adoptotic pathways. However, mutations that produce physical alterations in tubulin protein structure, can interfere with the several tubulin binding sites and inhibit the effective interaction and activity of these chemotherapeutic drugs.
== History == The Penning trap was named after F. M. Penning (1894–1953) by Hans Georg Dehmelt (1922–2017) who built the first trap. Dehmelt got inspiration from the vacuum gauge built by F. M. Penning where a current through a discharge tube in a magnetic field is proportional to the pressure. Citing from H. Dehmelt's autobiography: "I began to focus on the magnetron/Penning discharge geometry, which, in the Penning ion gauge, had caught my interest already at Göttingen and at Duke. In their 1955 cyclotron resonance work on photoelectrons in vacuum Franken and Liebes had reported undesirable frequency shifts caused by accidental electron trapping. Their analysis made me realize that in a pure electric quadrupole field the shift would not depend on the location of the electron in the trap. This is an important advantage over many other traps that I decided to exploit. A magnetron trap of this type had been briefly discussed in J.R. Pierce's 1949 book, and I developed a simple description of the axial, magnetron, and cyclotron motions of an electron in it. With the help of the expert glassblower of the Department, Jake Jonson, I built my first high vacuum magnetron trap in 1959 and was soon able to trap electrons for about 10 sec and to detect axial, magnetron and cyclotron resonances." – H. Dehmelt
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
A hybrid shipping container is a temperature-controlled shipping container that combines elements of passive and active thermal protection systems. Hybrid shipping containers commonly use phase-change material (PCM) and thermal energy storage units, sometimes referred to as a cold-energy battery, together with insulation and monitoring technologies to maintain temperature-sensitive products within specified ranges during transport.
Hinduism is the majority faith followed by nearly 80% of the population; Islam is the largest minority at over 14%. India also has populations of Christians and Sikhs in the tens of millions, Buddhists and Jains fewer than 10 million, and historical populations of Zoroastrians in the tens of thousands and Jews less than ten thousand. As of the 2011 census, India's last census, Hindus comprised a majority in 28 of India’s 35 states and union territories; this included the four most populous states: Uttar Pradesh (total population: 200 million; Hindu population: 80% of the state's total), Maharashtra (112 million, 80%), Bihar (104 million, 83%) and West Bengal (91 million, 71%). Muslims are in the majority in Lakshadweep Islands (60,000, 97%) and Jammu and Kashmir (8.6 million, 68%). Indian Christians make up about 2.3% of India's population. Saint Thomas Christians number around 8.7 million, whereas Indian Catholics number 11.8 million. Nearly 33% of Adivasi (or Scheduled Tribes of India's Constitution) are Christian. They are concentrated in three hill states of the northeast, Mizoram, Meghalaya, and Nagaland, where they constitute between 70% and 90% of the population. As per the 2011 census, Sikhs comprised less than 2% of India's population, though they were a majority in Punjab state, where more than 87% of Sikhs were farmers. Indian Buddhists number 8.45 million, with 77%, or 6.5 million, living in the state of Maharashtra. Indian Jains number 4.45 million, and Zoroastrians (Parsis), 60,000. As of 2019, there were 3,000 Jews in India, down from 28,000 in 1950.
Urbach–Wiethe disease is a very rare recessive genetic disorder, with approximately 400 reported cases since its discovery. It was first officially reported in 1929 by Erich Urbach and Camillo Wiethe, although cases may be recognized dating back as early as 1908. The symptoms of the disease vary greatly from individual to individual. They may include a hoarse voice, lesions and scarring on the skin, easily damaged skin with poor wound healing, dry, wrinkly skin, and beading of the papules around the eyelids. All of these are results of a general thickening of the skin and mucous membranes. In some cases there is also a hardening of brain tissue in the medial temporal lobes, which can lead to epilepsy and neuropsychiatric abnormalities. The disease is typically not life-threatening and patients do not show a decreased life span. Because Urbach–Wiethe disease is an autosomal recessive condition, individuals can be carriers of the disease but show no symptoms. The disease is caused by loss-of-function mutations to chromosome 1 at 1q21, the extracellular matrix protein 1 (ECM1) gene. The dermatological symptoms are caused by a buildup of a hyaline material in the dermis and the thickening of the basement membranes in the skin. Urbach–Wiethe disease is typically diagnosed by its clinical dermatological manifestations, particularly the beaded papules on the eyelids. The discovery of the mutations within the ECM1 gene has allowed the use of genetic testing to confirm an initial clinical diagnosis.
==== Ionic selectivity and plasticity ==== Several groups reinvestigated the permeability properties of TPCs and their role in NAADP-induced Ca2+ release, and they agreed that TPCs are indeed permeable to Na+ but they could not necessarily recapitulate the Na+ selectivity shown in the 2012/13 studies. It was therefore initially proposed that TPCs may conduct both Ca2+ and Na+ (analogous to the NMDA receptor of the plasma membrane). As more studies were published, why some groups observe a Na+ selectivity while others see a mixed Na+/Ca2+ permeability was unclear until the important realization that the TPC2 ionic selectivity wholly depended on the activating ligand. Currents activated by PI(3,5)P2 were predominantly carried by Na+ whereas NAADP-activated currents showed an eight-fold increase in the Ca2+ permeability. This conveniently explained the discrepancies between groups as well as revealing that TPC2 is extraordinarily plastic in operating in different conductance modalities. Since then, it appears that TPC2 can be synergistically activated by co-application of NAADP and PI(3,5)P2, although the molecular mechanisms are unclear. Therefore, TPC2 can operate as either a Ca2+ or Na+ channel, depending on whether NAADP or lipid activate it.
Although Bugie was considered to be the second author on the Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology paper, she was not listed on the patent submission. Bugie's contributions to Waksman's lab were great. In addition to her work on streptomycin, she also helped develop other antimicrobial substances, had two peer-reviewed publications, and researched the use of antimicrobials against plant pathogens, among several other important contributions to the scientific field, particularly in regard to microbiology.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
It is registered as a pharmaceutical product in Russia, where it is typically supplied as a nasal solution. In most other countries it is not an approved drug and is traded as a research chemical instead. Approval status depends entirely on the jurisdiction involved.
Most published work uses intranasal administration, matching the route of the registered Russian formulation. Some animal experiments use intravenous or intraperitoneal injection. The route matters because the intact peptide is cleared rapidly from blood, so exposure differs between methods.
A purity value describes the share of the powder accounted for by the target peptide, usually by high-performance liquid chromatography. It does not confirm that the sequence is correct, which requires mass spectrometry or amino acid analysis. Purity and identity are separate checks.
It is associated with the melanocortin receptor family, particularly subtypes found in the central nervous system. This interaction is separate from the adrenal pathway activated by full-length ACTH.