The story

Allan Goldstein and Abraham White at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York extracted thymosin fraction 5 from calf thymus in the 1960s. In 1977 Goldstein isolated and sequenced thymosin alpha 1, the most active piece. Enrico Garaci in Rome combined it with interferon and chemotherapy, and Luigina Romani in Perugia showed how it works through dendritic cells. China adopted it on a large scale for hepatitis B and C, sepsis, cancer support and the elderly, and it is a staple of Chinese hospital practice. Russian and Azerbaijani immunology reviewed its biology and used it alongside interferon in chronic hepatitis.