Telomerase

Telomeres are repetitive DNA sequences that cap the ends of chromosomes and shorten a little each time a cell divides. When they become critically short the cell stops dividing, which is one of the mechanisms of cellular ageing. Telomerase is the enzyme that adds repeats back onto telomeres. It is active in stem cells and most cancers and largely silent in ordinary adult tissue, so any compound that activates it raises the same question from two directions: could it slow cellular ageing, and could it help a tumour.

Telomerase enters the profiles through epithalon, a synthetic four-residue peptide developed in St Petersburg whose signature claim is that it activates telomerase in cultured human cells and extends telomeres. The founding work comes from a single research group and was published mainly in Russian-language journals; an independent laboratory reported reproducing the central in-vitro finding in 2025. There is no human trial evidence that epithalon lengthens telomeres in people, and the profile is explicit about the gap.

The telomere story is also the reason epithalon is grouped with longevity compounds such as MOTS-c on this site, and why the sleep and longevity peptides article treats both with caution.