What if the next breakthrough treatment for a rare disease was already sitting on the pharmacy shelf?

Drug repurposing, the science of finding new uses for existing medications, is transforming how we discover treatments, blending serendipity with strategy. It began with surprises like Viagra, a heart drug turned blockbuster, but today it's driven by advanced data tools that accelerate discovery and reduce risk.

We explore how knowledge graphs (vast maps of biomedical relationships between drugs, genes, and diseases) are now at the core of this revolution. When paired with artificial intelligence, these networks can surface overlooked connections buried in decades of medical literature. Unlike opaque algorithms, these AI systems can explain why a drug might work for a new condition, providing testable hypotheses and building trust with clinicians.

This approach doesn’t just save time—it can save lives. Traditional drug development takes over a decade and billions of dollars. Repurposed drugs, having already passed safety checks, can reach patients faster and cheaper. That’s a game-changer for rare and neglected diseases where time and resources are limited.

This episode is a journey through beautiful mistakes and brilliant methods, showing how multidisciplinary teams, from data scientists to clinicians, are reshaping the future of medicine. Join us to learn how technology is turning chance into choice, and uncovering new hope in old drugs.

References

Drug repurposing: approaches, methods and considerations | Elsevier
Elsevier Industry Overview
(No individual author listed)

Trends and Applications in Computationally Driven Drug Repurposing
Luca Pinzi & Giulio Rastelli
International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 2023

Biomedical Knowledge Graph Refinement with Embedding and Logic Rules
Sendong Zhao, Bing Qin, Ting Liu, Fei Wang
arXiv preprint, 2020

COVID-19 Literature Knowledge Graph Construction and Drug Repurposing Report Generation
Qingyun Wang et al.
NAACL Demonstrations, 2021

Explainable Drug Repurposing via Path Based Knowledge Graph Completion
Ana Jiménez, María José Merino, Juan Parras, Santiago Zazo
Scientific Reports, 2024

Knowledge Graphs for Drug Repurposing: A Review of Databases and Methods
Pablo Perdomo-Quinteiro & Alberto Belmonte-Hernández
Briefings in Bioinformatics, 2024
Credits:

Theme music: Nowhere Land, Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0
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