Title:Computational and Experimental Advances in Drug Repositioning for Accelerated Therapeutic Stratification
VOLUME: 15 ISSUE: 1
Author(s):Khader Shameer, Ben Readhead and Joel T. Dudley
Affiliation:Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences, Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, USA.
Keywords:Individualized medicine, Drug repositioning, Network analysis, Translational bioinformatics, Disease comorbidity,
Orphan disease, Biomedical data mining.
Abstract:Drug repositioning is an important component of therapeutic stratification in the precision medicine
paradigm. Molecular profiling and more sophisticated analysis of longitudinal clinical data are refining definitions
of human diseases, creating needs and opportunities to re-target or reposition approved drugs for alternative
indications. Drug repositioning studies have demonstrated success in complex diseases requiring improved
therapeutic interventions as well as orphan diseases without any known treatments. An increasing collection of available
computational and experimental methods that leverage molecular and clinical data enable diverse drug repositioning
strategies. Integration of translational bioinformatics resources, statistical methods, chemoinformatics tools and experimental
techniques (including medicinal chemistry techniques) can enable the rapid application of drug repositioning on an
increasingly broad scale. Efficient tools are now available for systematic drug-repositioning methods using large repositories
of compounds with biological activities. Medicinal chemists along with other translational researchers can play a key
role in various aspects of drug repositioning. In this review article, we briefly summarize the history of drug repositioning,
explain concepts behind drug repositioning methods, discuss recent computational and experimental advances and highlight
available open access resources for effective drug repositioning investigations. We also discuss recent approaches in
utilizing electronic health record for outcome assessment of drug repositioning and future avenues of drug repositioning in
the light of targeting disease comorbidities, underserved patient communities, individualized medicine and socioeconomic
impact.
