The story

In 1973 Loren Pickart, working with Marvin Thaler in San Francisco, found a small factor in young human plasma that kept old liver cells alive and working like young ones. He identified it as Gly-His-Lys and in 1980 showed that it works by carrying copper into cells. Through the 1980s and 1990s, French teams in Reims under Francois-Xavier Maquart showed it makes fibroblasts build collagen and helps rat wounds fill with new tissue. Later gene studies found it shifts thousands of human genes toward repair. Russian dermatologists in Moscow have reviewed its role in skin regeneration and use it in clinical skin care.