Important limitations
- Individual claims and source links have not yet completed editorial verification.
- Evidence level, applicable study model, formulation, route and population remain unassigned.
Livagen
Livagen is a synthetic four-residue peptide, Lys-Glu-Asp-Ala (KEDA), from the family of short bioregulators that Vladimir Khavinson's group at the St.
Dosing & scaling, explained
The moderated mass amounts below are retained for comparison. Near-duplicates, mix-dependent volumes and device markings are excluded. This is educational source context, not a protocol or recommendation.
Mass amounts available for comparison
- Lower range1 mgDose
Recorded example with no verified study backing; shown for amount literacy only.
- Mid range5 mgDose
Recorded example with no verified study backing; shown for amount literacy only.
Only mcg or mg amounts are retained. The calculator derives mL, syringe units or pen clicks from the current vial strength, water volume and device.
No independently verified schedule
Evidence context
No clinical amount or schedule is inferred from this material. Source verification is pending, and every displayed amount remains educational context rather than guidance.
Storage, handling and interpretation
Product identity
Verify the exact compound, formulation and amount against the product label or certificate before calculation.
Storage & handling
Follow the product label, certificate and validated laboratory SOP; no universal storage assumption is applied here.
Prepared solutions
Label concentration and preparation date, use sterile technique where applicable, and follow a validated stability protocol.
Reported protocols for Livagen
What published studies and recent community write-ups report about amounts, timing and course length. 1 clinical, 4 preclinical and 2 community-reported rows, each linked to its source. These are descriptions of what others report, not instructions, and nothing here is medical advice.
| Context | Dose | Frequency | Route | Course | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clinical1 row | |||||
| Chronic persistent hepatitis series inside the patent (not peer-reviewed)23 patients aged 32-53 with chronic persistent hepatitis of 10-20 years' duration, plus 12 conventionally treated controls | 0.01-100 mcg/kg | Once daily | Intramuscular, dissolved in isotonic saline | 10-40 days, set by disease severityNot applicable | Google Patents (United States Patent and Trademark Office)2006 |
| The patent reports that 93% of treated patients noted less weakness and better appetite, that 51% had less pain under the right ribs, and that bilirubin and ALT moved toward normal, with immunoglobulin changes also tabulated. The dose is stated only as a 10,000-fold range, the controls were neither randomized nor blinded, and no outcome definitions or statistics beyond table footnotes are given, so the series cannot establish efficacy and has never appeared in a journal. | |||||
| Preclinical4 rows | |||||
| Cultured rat hepatocytes and liver explants (patent examples)Hepatocyte monolayers from rats aged 1 to 24 months, and chick embryo liver explants | 0.005 mcg/mL in culture (hepatocytes); 2-400 ng/mL tested in explants, with 20 ng/mL the active level | Single exposure; 4 hours of incubation for the hepatocyte work | Added to the culture medium | Hours (hepatocytes) to 3 days (explants)Not applicable | Google Patents (United States Patent and Trademark Office)2006 |
| In the patent's culture examples the tetrapeptide raised radiolabelled protein synthesis in hepatocytes from rats of every age, with the largest effect in cells from old animals, and at 20 ng/mL increased the growth area of liver explants by 24% on day 3 while leaving other tissues unchanged. A 2001 paper from the same group reports the hepatocyte finding and notes that the sister tetrapeptide epitalon had no effect in the same cells; these are culture concentrations, not doses, and cannot be converted into one. | |||||
| Carbon tetrachloride hepatitis in rats (patent example)Rats with acute toxic hepatitis induced by 5 days of carbon tetrachloride | 1 mcg per animal per injection | Once daily | Intramuscular | 5 days alongside the poison, or 15 days after the poison was stoppedNot applicable | Google Patents (United States Patent and Trademark Office)2006 |
| Rats injected during the 5 days of carbon tetrachloride dosing showed less liver damage than untreated poisoned animals, with total protein, cholesterol and bilirubin partly restored and aminotransferases between the intact and hepatitis values. Animals treated for 15 days after the poisoning had those blood markers back at normal values by day 20; the experiment is reported only in the patent and has not been published with peer review. | |||||
| Transplanted hepatoma-27 in rats (patent example)37 female rats with hepatoma-27 transplanted under the skin of the thigh | 1 mcg/kg | Once daily for 10 days from the day after transplantation | Subcutaneous | 10 days of injections, with tumor follow-up to day 50Not applicable | Google Patents (United States Patent and Trademark Office)2006 |
| Tumors in treated rats were 2.5 times smaller than in controls by day 30, three animals showed complete tumor resolution, skin ulceration over the tumor was less frequent after day 39 and mean survival was longer, with a single dose of cyclophosphamide as the positive control. The patent frames this as a liver-protective effect; no independent laboratory has repeated it. | |||||
| Toxicology package in the patentMice (acute, 12 per dose group) and 64 white mongrel rats weighing 170-250 g (subacute and chronic) | 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 mg/kg as a single dose (mice); 1 mcg/kg, 0.3 mg/kg or 3 mg/kg daily for 90 days and 1 mcg/kg, 0.1 mg/kg or 1 mg/kg daily for 6 months (rats) | Single dose, or once daily | Intramuscular, in 0.25-0.5 mL of saline | 72 hours and 14 days of observation (acute); 90 days; 6 monthsNot applicable | Google Patents (United States Patent and Trademark Office)2006 |
| The patent reports that no mouse died within 72 hours or 14 days at doses it describes as several thousand times the intended therapeutic dose, and that rats showed no side effects or pathological changes after 90 days or 6 months of daily injections, with blood counts, biochemistry and organ examinations. This is sponsor-generated patent toxicology rather than a regulator-reviewed program, and the underlying data tables are not published. | |||||
| Community-reported2 rows | |||||
| Research-vial or capsule course | 1-2 mg (research vial) or 1-2 capsules (Russian supplement line) | Once daily | Subcutaneous from a reconstituted vial (5 mg in 2.5 mL gives 2 mg/mL, so 1 mg is 50 units); capsules by mouth about 30 minutes before a meal | 10-30 daysCourse repeated once or twice a year | Community resource2026 |
| A calculator page updated in August 2026 labels this the Khavinson-style course, rates the evidence as low, and stresses that the chromatin work comes from a single research school and that the vial and the capsule are different products. Its chemistry card lists a formula and mass that do not match the PubChem record for Lys-Glu-Asp-Ala, which is a reminder to check any grey-market vial against a certificate of analysis. | |||||
| Grey-market bioregulator course | A few mg per day, a figure the page ties to the 10 mg and 20 mg vial sizes rather than to any study | Once daily | Subcutaneous or intramuscular; the oral capsule is described as a separate Russian product | Days 1-10, extended to 20 days in some protocolsRepeated once or twice a year | Community resource2026 |
| This reference page, updated in July 2026, reproduces the circulating user pattern while stating that no trial established the dose, interval or duration, that the published work consists of nanogram to microgram per millilitre culture concentrations that cannot be converted into a dose, and that no human pharmacokinetic study exists. It leaves its own dose field empty rather than inventing a figure and warns that grey-market short peptides are often mislabelled or underdosed. | |||||
How a course is commonly described
- Days 1-10Community-reported
User and vendor protocols describe a short daily course of subcutaneous or intramuscular injections, usually ten days, at a milligram-level dose that follows the vial size rather than any measurement. No onset time has been documented in any human study.
- Days 10-30Community-reported
Some write-ups extend the course to 20 or 30 days at 1-2 mg a day, and the Russian capsule line uses the same 10 to 30 day window with 1-2 capsules taken before breakfast. The two formats are different products that happen to share a name.
- Repeat once or twice a yearCommunity-reported
Both community pages describe the course as something repeated once or twice a year rather than run continuously, a cadence that matches the manufacturer protocol for the capsule line. Neither page cites a study that tested repeat courses.
- Patent comparisonClinical
The only human course on record, the patent's hepatitis series, used once-daily intramuscular injections for 10-40 days at a dose stated only as 0.01-100 mcg/kg. A 1-2 mg research-vial dose in a 70 kg adult works out to roughly 14-29 mcg/kg, inside that range, but the patent never says which dose its patients actually received.
- No human pharmacokinetic, dose-finding or controlled study of Livagen exists and no trial is registered, so the 10 to 30 day course is a convention carried over from other Khavinson peptides rather than anything measured for this one.
- The chromatin and hepatocyte findings that give the peptide its reputation were obtained at nanogram to microgram per millilitre concentrations in culture by one research school, without independent replication, and say nothing about what an injected milligram does in a person.
- Livagen has no approval from any regulator and is not named on the WADA prohibited list; it is sold as a research chemical or, in Russia, as a food supplement capsule. The rows above record what the patent, the papers and the vendor pages report, not endorsements.
Sources for this section (12)
- Tetrapeptide stimulating the functional activity of hepatocytes, pharmacological substance on its basis and the method of its application (US7101854B2)
- Rhythm of protein synthesis in cultures of hepatocytes from rats of different ages. Norm and effect of the peptide livagen
- Effects of Livagen peptide on chromatin activation in lymphocytes from old people
- Effect of new peptide bioregulators livagen and epitalon on enkephalin-degrading enzymes in human serum
- Effects of short peptides on lymphocyte chromatin in senile subjects
- Effect of peptide Livagen on activity of digestive enzymes in gastrointestinal tract and non-digestive organs in rats of different ages
- Activation of pericentromeric and telomeric heterochromatin in cultured lymphocytes from old individuals
- The influence of polypeptide liver complex and tetrapeptide KEDA on organism physiological function in norm and age-related pathology
Plus 4 community resources (dosing guides, forum threads and vendor write-ups), reported above but not linked.
Overview
Livagen is a synthetic four-residue peptide, Lys-Glu-Asp-Ala (KEDA), from the family of short bioregulators that Vladimir Khavinson's group at the St. Petersburg Institute of Bioregulation and Gerontology designed to stand in for the active fragments of organ extracts, in this case a liver preparation. Its published record consists of culture work from that group and its Georgian collaborators, in which the peptide raised protein synthesis in hepatocytes from rats of different ages and loosened condensed chromatin in lymphocytes taken from people aged 75 to 91, together with a two-week oral rat study of digestive enzymes and an in vitro assay in which it inhibited enkephalin-degrading enzymes in human serum. The only account of human treatment is an uncontrolled 23-patient hepatitis series inside Khavinson's expired 2006 US patent; vendor research guides that queried ClinicalTrials.gov in 2026 found no registered trial, no pharmacokinetic study has been published, and no regulator has approved it. Outside Russia it is sold as a lyophilized research chemical in 5, 10 and 20 mg vials, and inside the Russian bioregulator supplement line as oral capsules.
What researchers are exploring
These themes organize the educational information currently available. Individual claims remain under source review and are not treatment claims.
- 1
DNA Organization in Eukaryotes
Understanding DNA packaging and organization in eukaryotic cells
- 2
Chromatin's Role in Gene Expression Control
How Livagen affects chromatin structure and gene expression
- 3
Lymphocytes and Immune System
Livagen's effects on immune system cells and cardiac health
- 4
Livagen and Pain Management
Livagen's role in pain control and enkephalin regulation
- 5
Livagen and the Gastrointestinal Tract
Livagen's effects on GI tract mucosal barrier and protection
- 6
Livagen and Aging
Livagen's anti-aging effects through DNA decondensation
What is known and what still needs verification
Available context is organized without assigning unsupported study models or evidence grades.
- Not graded
DNA Organization in Eukaryotes
Understanding DNA packaging and organization in eukaryotic cells
- Not graded
Chromatin's Role in Gene Expression Control
How Livagen affects chromatin structure and gene expression
Amounts recorded for Livagen
These amount records are independent from vial strength, reconstitution volume and measuring device. A recorded source is not the same as study backing, and these values are not recommendations.
- 1Dose · lower endpointSign in for schedule, duration and source context.1 mg
- 2Dose · upper endpointSign in for schedule, duration and source context.5 mg
Chemistry identifiers
Sequence, synonyms and registry identifiers as recorded in PubChem, the National Library of Medicine's open chemistry database. Formula, mass and CAS number are summarized at the top of the page.
Sequence
Lys-Glu-Asp-Ala
Also listed as
Livagen, KEDA (one-letter sequence code), Lys-Glu-Asp-Ala, SCHEMBL5967826, EX-A16866, orb3212192
InChIKey
IKVDKWACACMDLR-BJDJZHNGSA-N
IUPAC name
(4S)-5-[[(2S)-3-carboxy-1-[[(1S)-1-carboxyethyl]amino]-1-oxopropan-2-yl]amino]-4-[[(2S)-2,6-diaminohexanoyl]amino]-5-oxopentanoic acid
Limitations and unknowns
Sources
1 link carried over from the earlier page, awaiting verification.