What is Selank? A plain-English explainer
A lab-made seven-amino-acid analog of tuftsin, a naturally occurring immune-system peptide.
Selank is a synthetic peptide — a seven-amino-acid analog of tuftsin, a naturally occurring peptide involved in the immune system. Tuftsin itself is a four-amino-acid fragment released when an antibody (immunoglobulin G) is broken down; Selank extends that sequence with three additional amino acids for stability. It is approved as a prescription medicine in Russia and sold elsewhere as a research chemical.
That one paragraph is the whole definition. The rest of this page unpacks it at two levels — plain English, then a little deeper — and shows how the reconstitution math works, because research-grade Selank ships as a dried powder that has to be mixed and measured before anything else.
Selank in plain English
Selank starts from tuftsin — a naturally occurring four-amino-acid peptide released when the antibody IgG is broken down inside the body. Selank is a synthetic version built from the tuftsin sequence with three more amino acids attached, which makes the resulting seven-amino-acid chain more stable than tuftsin on its own.
Selank was developed at the Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. So when you see the name, read it as: a lab-made, stabilised analog of a naturally occurring immune peptide, developed and registered as a medicine in one specific country.
Research-grade Selank usually arrives as a small glass vial of white powder. The powder is the peptide with the water removed (freeze-dried, or “lyophilised”) so it stays stable in storage. On its own the powder can’t be measured into a syringe or spray bottle — there’s no volume to draw. That’s why the next step, reconstitution, exists.
The science, a little deeper
A few specifics that the plain-English version glosses over:
- It’s a defined sequence, not the parent peptide. Selank’s sequence is Thr-Lys-Pro-Arg-Pro-Gly-Pro — the four-amino-acid tuftsin sequence (Thr-Lys-Pro-Arg) plus an added Pro-Gly-Pro tripeptide. That addition is what distinguishes Selank from tuftsin itself.
- It’s supplied lyophilised. Removing the water gives the powder a long shelf life; adding a measured liquid back (reconstitution) is what turns it into a solution with a known strength, whether that solution is later injected or used to fill a metered nasal spray.
- Its regulatory status is country-specific. Selank is registered and sold as a prescription medicine in Russia, under the brand name Selanc, for generalised anxiety and neurasthenia. It is not approved by the FDA or EMA and has no authorised medical use in the United States, the United Kingdom, or the European Union, where it is sold and studied as a research chemical.
If you want the classification in one line: Selank is a synthetic tuftsin-analog peptide, 7 amino acids, approved as a medicine in Russia only, supplied as a freeze-dried powder for reconstitution.
How reconstitution works for Selank
Reconstitution is just dissolving the powder in a known volume of liquid so you have a concentration — milligrams of peptide per millilitre of solution. Once the concentration is fixed, the volume for any target dose is simple arithmetic:
- Concentration = vial amount (mg) ÷ diluent volume (mL)
- Draw volume = target dose ÷ concentration
- Syringe units = draw volume (mL) × the units-per-mL of your syringe
The numbers all come from your own vial label and your own records — the peptide amount printed on the vial and the volume of diluent you add. The separate Amidra web calculator runs exactly those three steps and shows the formula at each one, so you can check it by hand. It never fills in a dose for you.
What Amidra does — and doesn’t — do here
Amidra is a tracking and education tool. It converts the values you enter and helps you keep a protocol organised; it does not recommend a dose, a compound, or a schedule, and it takes no position on whether anyone should use Selank. Those decisions belong with a qualified healthcare professional. The information above is definitional — what the compound is — not medical advice.