Vilon

Vilon is one of the shortest peptide bioregulators in the Khavinson family — the dipeptide Lys-Glu (KE). Despite its minimal structure (just two amino acids), it has been reported to have substantial biological activity including immunomodulation, telomere-related effects, and life-extension activity in mouse studies. The compound has been used in Russian clinical settings as a thymus-supporting immunomodulator alongside Thymalin and Thymagen, often in elderly populations and immunocompromised patients.

A particularly notable Khavinson-group finding is that chronic administration of Vilon to aged mice extended median lifespan and reduced age-related tumor incidence compared to control mice. This finding has been one of the more frequently cited pieces of evidence for the broader claim that Khavinson short peptides have measurable anti-aging effects in mammals. The mouse-to-human extrapolation, however, is far from straightforward, and the lifespan extension effect has not been replicated in independent Western studies.

Vilon is sold by research-chemical vendors outside Russia. Western clinical validation is essentially absent. The compound is sometimes preferred in self-experimentation contexts over the more complex Thymalin because of its simple defined dipeptide structure and presumed lower batch variability.

Vilon was developed in the 2000s as a synthetic short-peptide bioregulator following the discovery that the Lys-Glu dipeptide sequence could be isolated as a bioactive fragment of immune-related peptide preparations. The mouse lifespan studies were conducted by Khavinson and Anisimov's group and have been reported across multiple publications dating from the early 2000s onward.