The story

Vesugen was designed at Vladimir Khavinson's Institute of Bioregulation and Gerontology in St Petersburg, from the amino acid makeup of a peptide extract taken from blood vessel walls. It was built to restore vessels in older people with atherosclerosis and poor circulation. St Petersburg labs showed it restarts division in aged endothelial cells by binding the promoter of the Ki-67 gene. Later work found it also guides stem cells toward nerve cells and protects synapses in Alzheimer models.