Why this is worth checking
Who pays for research, and who carries it out, does not decide whether a result is true. Good science can come from company money, and bad science can come from public grants.
But funding and personal stakes can shape which questions get asked, how results are framed and which findings get published. That is why reputable journals ask authors to disclose them. Reading those disclosures is part of reading a paper properly.
Here is what the four SS-31 studies say.
The brain study (Hainan, 2020)
Funding: a research and development grant from Hainan Medical University.
Conflicts of interest: the authors declare none.
Where the SS-31 came from: bought from a commercial peptide supplier, AnaSpec, in California.
This is about as independent as it gets. A university-funded group, buying the compound on the open market, with no stated connection to its developer.
The liver study (Texas Tech, 2021)
Funding: several grants from the US National Institutes of Health to the senior author, P. Hemachandra Reddy, plus support for the first author from his university.
Where the SS-31 came from: bought from a commercial supplier, Biogenix, in California. The paper notes it was originally developed by Szeto and Schiller.
This is public funding, which is generally considered a good sign for independence. One thing worth noting is that the Reddy group has published a long run of studies on SS-31, and the paper cites a lot of the group's own earlier work. That is normal for an established lab, but it does mean this is a group with a long-standing research interest in showing SS-31 works.
The BAX study (Wisconsin, 2021)
Funding: partly from Stealth BioTherapeutics, the company developing elamipretide, plus Research to Prevent Blindness, a National Eye Institute grant and university awards.
Authors: two of the five authors were employees of Stealth BioTherapeutics. They helped design the study and edit the manuscript.
Where the SS-31 came from: supplied by Stealth BioTherapeutics.
This is the one with the closest company ties. Yet, as covered in Part 4, it is also the study whose main finding undercuts a popular explanation of how SS-31 works. A company-funded study publishing a result that does not flatter the company's drug is worth noting.
The muscle study (Weill Cornell, 2011)
Authors: includes Hazel Szeto, one of the scientists behind the SS peptide family.
Funding and conflicts: not stated. As a short conference abstract, it does not include the disclosure sections a full paper would.
Having a compound's developer as a co-author is normal and often helpful. They know the compound best. It is also a reason to look for independent confirmation.
Laid out side by side
| Study | Main funding | Link to developer | SS-31 source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brain, 2020 | University grant | None declared | Commercial supplier |
| Liver, 2021 | Public grants (NIH) | None declared, long-running SS-31 research group | Commercial supplier |
| BAX, 2021 | Partly the developer | Two authors employed by the developer | The developer |
| Muscle, 2011 | Not stated | Co-developer of the peptide is an author | Not stated |
What this tells us
A few observations.
The most positive results came from groups with no declared link to the developer. The brain and liver studies, which reported the broadest benefits, were university and publicly funded. That cuts against the simple idea that SS-31's good results are just industry spin.
The most cautious result came from the study with the strongest company link. The Wisconsin study, partly funded and co-authored by the developer, found SS-31 does not do one of the things it was thought to do.
Supplier differences matter for comparison. The SS-31 in these studies came from at least three different sources. Purity and preparation can vary between suppliers. None of the papers report independent testing of the peptide they used. That is common in this kind of research, but it is one more reason results might differ between labs.
Missing disclosures are a gap. The abstract format of the 2011 study means we simply do not know its funding. That is not an accusation, just a limit on what can be judged.
The point of all this
None of these funding details prove any result right or wrong. But reading them changes how you weigh the evidence.
In this case, the pattern is reassuring in one way. Independent, publicly funded groups found consistent benefits in animals. A company-linked group published a result that narrowed those claims rather than inflating them. That is roughly what a healthy research field looks like.
It also shows why no single paper should be taken as the final word, whoever funded it.
Next, the final part of this series, and of this collection: the gap between what these studies show and what is often claimed, and what to focus on first.
This series discusses four laboratory studies in animals and cultured cells. None tested SS-31 in people. Nothing here is medical advice, and SS-31 is discussed for research purposes only.
