In Silico Drug Repurposing: An Effective Tool to Accelerate the Drug Discovery Process
Abstract
Repurposing “old” drugs to treat both common and rare diseases is increasingly emerging as an attractive proposition due to the use of de-risked compounds, with potential for lower overall development costs and shorter development timelines. This is due to the high attrition rates, significant costs, and slow pace of new drug discovery and development. Drug repurposing is the process of finding new, more efficient uses for already-available medications. Numerous computational drug repurposing techniques exist, there are three main types of computational drug-repositioning methods used on COVID-19 are network-based models, structure-based methods and artificial intelligence (AI) methods used to discover novel drug–target relationships useful for new therapies. In order to assess how a chemical molecule can interact with its biological counterpart and try to find new uses for medicines already on the market, structure-based techniques made it possible to identify small chemical compounds capable of binding macromolecular targets. In this chapter, we explain strategies for drug repurposing, discuss about difficulties encountered by the repurposing community, and suggest reported drugs through the drug repurposing. Moreover, metabolic and drug discovery network resources, tools for network construction, analysis and protein–protein interaction analysis to enable drug repurposing to reach its full potential.
How strong is the evidence?
Evidence Hub reads this as a book / chapter, done in computer models (in silico), not in people. Its evidence level is 5 of 5 (Very low · case / narrative / animal / in vitro / in silico). Case reports, narrative reviews, and animal, cell or computer-model studies give the weakest evidence for human health.
Read the paper
Related studies
- Improving the translation of search strategies using the Polyglot Search Translator: a randomized controlled trial
- Nutritional, Physical, Cognitive, and Combination Interventions and Frailty Reversal Among Older Adults: A Randomized Controlled Trial
- Clinical characteristics and risk factors associated with COVID-19 severity in patients with haematological malignancies in Italy: a retrospective, multicentre, cohort study
- A randomized, controlled trial of oral propranolol in infantile hemangioma
- Clinical phenotypes of delirium during critical illness and severity of subsequent long-term cognitive impairment: a prospective cohort study
- Increased physical activity improves sleep and mood outcomes in inactive people with insomnia: a randomized controlled trial
Go deeper in Evidence Hub
Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.