Drug repurposing or drug repositioning is a new approach to presenting new indications for common commercial and clinically approved existing drugs. For example, chloroquine, an old antimalarial drug, showed promising results for treating COVID-19, interfering with MDR in several types of cancer, and chemosensitizing human leukemic cells.This book focuses on the hypothesis, risk/benefits, and economic impacts of drug repurposing on drug discovery in dermatology, infectious diseases, neurological disorders, cancer, and orphan diseases. It brings together up-to-date research to provide readers with an informative, illustrative, and easy-to-read book useful for students, clinicians, and the pharmaceutical industry.
Drug Repurposing in Cancer Therapy: Approaches and Applications provides comprehensive and updated information from experts in basic science research and clinical practice on how existing drugs can be repurposed for cancer treatment. The book summarizes successful stories that may assist researchers in the field to better design their studies for new repurposing projects. Sections discuss specific topics such as in silico prediction and high throughput screening of repurposed drugs, drug repurposing for overcoming chemoresistance and eradicating cancer stem cells, and clinical investigation on combination of repurposed drug and anticancer therapy. Cancer researchers, oncologists, pharmacologists and several members of biomedical field who are interested in learning more about the use of existing drugs for different purposes in cancer therapy will find this to be a valuable resource. - Presents a systematic and up-to-date collection of the research underpinning the various drug repurposing approaches for a quick, but in-depth understanding on current trends in drug repurposing research - Brings better understanding of the drug repurposing process in a holistic way, combining both basic and clinical sciences - Encompasses a collection of successful stories of drug repurposing for cancer therapy in different cancer types
Free energy constitutes the most important thermodynamic quantity to understand how chemical species recognize each other, associate or react. Examples of problems in which knowledge of the underlying free energy behaviour is required, include conformational equilibria and molecular association, partitioning between immiscible liquids, receptor-drug interaction, protein-protein and protein-DNA association, and protein stability. This volume sets out to present a coherent and comprehensive account of the concepts that underlie different approaches devised for the determination of free energies. The reader will gain the necessary insight into the theoretical and computational foundations of the subject and will be presented with relevant applications from molecular-level modelling and simulations of chemical and biological systems. Both formally accurate and approximate methods are covered using both classical and quantum mechanical descriptions. A central theme of the book is that the wide variety of free energy calculation techniques available today can be understood as different implementations of a few basic principles. The book is aimed at a broad readership of graduate students and researchers having a background in chemistry, physics, engineering and physical biology.
LOS ANGELES TIMES AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BESTSELLER • The powerful memoir of a young doctor and former college athlete diagnosed with a rare disease who spearheaded the search for a cure—and became a champion for a new approach to medical research. “A wonderful and moving chronicle of a doctor’s relentless pursuit, this book serves both patients and physicians in demystifying the science that lies behind medicine.”—Siddhartha Mukherjee, New York Times bestselling author of The Emperor of All Maladies and The Gene David Fajgenbaum, a former Georgetown quarterback, was nicknamed the Beast in medical school, where he was also known for his unmatched mental stamina. But things changed dramatically when he began suffering from inexplicable fatigue. In a matter of weeks, his organs were failing and he was read his last rites. Doctors were baffled by his condition, which they had yet to even diagnose. Floating in and out of consciousness, Fajgenbaum prayed for a second chance, the equivalent of a dramatic play to second the game into overtime. Miraculously, Fajgenbaum survived—only to endure repeated near-death relapses from what would eventually be identified as a form of Castleman disease, an extremely deadly and rare condition that acts like a cross between cancer and an autoimmune disorder. When he relapsed while on the only drug in development and realized that the medical community was unlikely to make progress in time to save his life, Fajgenbaum turned his desperate hope for a cure into concrete action: Between hospitalizations he studied his own charts and tested his own blood samples, looking for clues that could unlock a new treatment. With the help of family, friends, and mentors, he also reached out to other Castleman disease patients and physicians, and eventually came up with an ambitious plan to crowdsource the most promising research questions and recruit world-class researchers to tackle them. Instead of waiting for the scientific stars to align, he would attempt to align them himself. More than five years later and now married to his college sweetheart, Fajgenbaum has seen his hard work pay off: A treatment he identified has induced a tentative remission and his novel approach to collaborative scientific inquiry has become a blueprint for advancing rare disease research. His incredible story demonstrates the potency of hope, and what can happen when the forces of determination, love, family, faith, and serendipity collide. Praise for Chasing My Cure “A page-turning chronicle of living, nearly dying, and discovering what it really means to be invincible in hope.”—Angela Duckworth, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Grit “[A] remarkable memoir . . . Fajgenbaum writes lucidly and movingly . . . Fajgenbaum’s stirring account of his illness will inspire readers.”—Publishers Weekly
This detailed book explores techniques commonly used for research into drug repurposing, a well-known strategy to find alternative indications for drugs which have already undergone toxicology and pharma-kinetic studies but have failed later stages during the development, via computational methods. Thereby, it addresses the intense challenges of identifying the appropriate type of algorithm and relevant technical information for computational repurposing. Written for the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series, the authors of each chapter use their experience in the field to describe the implementation and successful use of a specific repurposing method thus providing lab-ready instruction. Authoritative and practical, Computational Methods for Drug Repurposing serves as an ideal guide to researchers interested in this vital area of drug development.
In nature, many physical processes are governed by the passage of time. The study of these processes - chronobiology - reveals rhythmic patterns which may be yearly, monthly, daily or more frequent. Novel drug delivery systems are currently being delivered that will release varying quantities of a drug at optimum times to coincide with these rhythmic patterns.Chronotherapeutics considers the pharmaceutical and therapeutic implications associated with biological clocks. The book presents a comprehensive discussion of specific diseases that are time dependent, and the drugs and new drug formulations that can be used as treatments.Written by leading international experts in the field, Chronotherapeutics provides up-to-date information on chronobiology for non-chronobiologists in pharmaceutical and medical sciences. Peter Redfern is Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Bath, UK.
Big data, genomics, and quantitative approaches to network-based analysis are combining to advance the frontiers of medicine as never before. Network Medicine introduces this rapidly evolving field of medical research, which promises to revolutionize the diagnosis and treatment of human diseases. With contributions from leading experts that highlight the necessity of a team-based approach in network medicine, this definitive volume provides readers with a state-of-the-art synthesis of the progress being made and the challenges that remain. Medical researchers have long sought to identify single molecular defects that cause diseases, with the goal of developing silver-bullet therapies to treat them. But this paradigm overlooks the inherent complexity of human diseases and has often led to treatments that are inadequate or fraught with adverse side effects. Rather than trying to force disease pathogenesis into a reductionist model, network medicine embraces the complexity of multiple influences on disease and relies on many different types of networks: from the cellular-molecular level of protein-protein interactions to correlational studies of gene expression in biological samples. The authors offer a systematic approach to understanding complex diseases while explaining network medicine’s unique features, including the application of modern genomics technologies, biostatistics and bioinformatics, and dynamic systems analysis of complex molecular networks in an integrative context. By developing techniques and technologies that comprehensively assess genetic variation, cellular metabolism, and protein function, network medicine is opening up new vistas for uncovering causes and identifying cures of disease.
SARS is a newly identified human infection caused by a corona virus unlike any other known human or animal virus in its family. The analysis of epidemiological information obtained from the sites of the outbreaks of SARS is still underway but the overall case fatality ratio is known to approach 11% although the rate among the elderly is much higher. Currently the major challenges for the treatment of SARS are: the source of the SARS virus and mode of transmission are still not well understood; there are problems with diagnostic tools; there is no effective treatment; and there is no vaccine for SARS. The above-mentioned difficulties and challenges have motivated national authorities health workers and scientists to explore the potential of complementary treatment. The results of research on integrated treatment with TCM and Western medicine showed that it is safe and that it also has some potential clinical benefits. Therefore the experts suggested that records of such experience could serve as reference material for treatment of SARS in the future. This publication is intended to share experience in the complementary treatment of SARS patients; share the experience of clinical studies in the field of traditional medicine for treatment of SARS between the physicians and researchers; and to further encourage and promote the quality of research in the filed of traditional medicine.
This detailed new edition provides a comprehensive collection of protocols applicable to all members of the Coronavirinae sub-family currently and that are also transferrable to other fields of virology. Beginning with a section on detection, discovery, and evolution, the volume continues with coverage of propagation and titration of coronaviruses, genome manipulation, study of virus-host interactions, as well as imaging coronavirus infections. Written for the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Authoritative and cutting-edge, Coronaviruses: Methods and Protocols, Second Edition serves as a valuable guide to researchers working to identify and control viruses with increased potential to cross the species barrier and to develop the diagnostics, vaccines, and antiviral therapeutics that are required to manage future outbreaks in both humans and animals.
This book is dedicated to addressing the major challenges in fighting COVID-19 using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) – from cost and complexity to availability and accuracy. The aim of this book is to focus on both the design and implementation of AI-based approaches in proposed COVID-19 solutions that are enabled and supported by sensor networks, cloud computing, and 5G and beyond. This book presents research that contributes to the application of ML techniques to the problem of computer communication-assisted diagnosis of COVID-19 and similar diseases. The authors present the latest theoretical developments, real-world applications, and future perspectives on this topic. This book brings together a broad multidisciplinary community, aiming to integrate ideas, theories, models, and techniques from across different disciplines on intelligent solutions/systems, and to inform how cognitive systems in Next Generation Networks (NGN) should be designed, developed, and evaluated while exchanging and processing critical health information. Targeted readers are from varying disciplines who are interested in implementing the smart planet/environments vision via wireless/wired enabling technologies.
