What a peptide actually is
A peptide is a short chain of amino acids joined by amide bonds. Everything else — the hype, the confusion, the regulation — sits on top of that one sentence.
Backbone
Plain-language peptide science.
An independent, reader-supported explainer publication covering the biochemistry, history, and regulation of peptides — written for people who never took organic chemistry and would like to understand the headlines anyway.
Start with the basicsWe explain the science.
Amino acids, amide bonds, receptor binding, half-lives, clinical-trial phases. Every explainer is reviewed by a working biochemist before it publishes, and we cite the primary literature so you can go read it yourself.
We don't sell anything or give medical advice.
No products, no vendors, no affiliate links, no protocols. Most compounds discussed in fitness and biohacking circles are investigational — not FDA-approved, not dietary supplements. Questions about your own health belong with a licensed clinician.
Featured explainers
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How peptides became medicine: a short history
From a Toronto laboratory in 1921 to solid-phase synthesis and the engineered therapeutics of today — a hundred years told through four turning points.
The peptides your body already makes
Insulin, oxytocin, vasopressin, glucagon, defensins. Your physiology runs on short amino-acid chains, and the reasons why are worth understanding.
About Backbone
An honest middle ground
Backbone has published from Cambridge, Massachusetts since 2021, a few blocks from the Kendall Square labs where a fair amount of this chemistry is actually done. We started because peptide coverage online had split into two useless halves: dense papers nobody outside the field can parse, and forums promising things no evidence supports.
We sit in between. We read the trial registrations and the review articles, we ask a biochemist to check the draft, and we say plainly when the answer is nobody knows yet.
Scientific literacy isn't knowing the answer. It's knowing what kind of evidence would settle the question — and noticing when nobody has bothered to collect it.
— The Backbone editorsThe free explainer digest
One email, roughly every other week: a plain-language walk through one piece of peptide science, plus what we got wrong last time. No products, ever.
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