The tuftsin origin story
Selank did not start as an anxiety drug. Its backbone is tuftsin, an immune peptide discovered at Tufts University in 1…
From a 1970 immune discovery to a Moscow anxiety peptide
Selank did not start as an anxiety drug. Its backbone is tuftsin, an immune peptide discovered at Tufts University in 1970 that tells white blood cells to engulf invaders. Decades later, Russian scientists saw that this tiny, unstable molecule could be re-engineered into something that acts on the brain.
This unit traces that arc: the discovery of tuftsin, why native tuftsin was too fragile to be a drug, and how the Institute of Molecular Genetics in Moscow appended a stabilizing tail to create Selank.
Key terms
The discovery of tuftsin
In 1970, Victor Najjar and Keisuke Nishioka at Tufts University described a four-amino-acid peptide cut from antibodies that powerfully stimulated immune cells to engulf pathogens. They named it tuftsin after their university. It was one of the first examples of a tiny peptide fragment carrying a specific, potent biological instruction.
Tuftsin's discovery mattered far beyond immunology. It proved that a fragment cut from a large protein could act as a standalone signaling molecule, an idea that shaped later peptide drug design. Selank is a direct descendant of that insight: keep the useful core, engineer away its weaknesses.
AdvancedHow tuftsin is made in the body
Tuftsin is not synthesized on its own. It is cleaved from the heavy chain of immunoglobulin G (from a precursor called leucokinin) by an enzyme on the surface of neutrophils and macrophages. Because the spleen processes IgG, splenectomy lowers tuftsin levels, and a rare congenital tuftsin deficiency is linked to recurrent infections. That biology is why tuftsin is fundamentally an immune molecule.