Covid brought a safe, but obscure older drug called Ivermectin to the forefront of controversy. Current evidence shows Ivermectin could have saved many lives if it had been used early and often, but it appears that $$$$ was a motive for demonizing the drug.
But built on the concept of re-purposing of Ivermectin, A-I can be effectively utilized to test permutations and scenarios otherwise unfathomed. And we could end up seeing a lot of diseases cured by repurposed generic or obscure medications. Truly groundbreaking.
FULL STORY AT LINK ^^^
But built on the concept of re-purposing of Ivermectin, A-I can be effectively utilized to test permutations and scenarios otherwise unfathomed. And we could end up seeing a lot of diseases cured by repurposed generic or obscure medications. Truly groundbreaking.
FULL STORY AT LINK ^^^
Drugs Have Uses We Can’t Imagine. He’s Using A.I. to Find Them. - The…
March 20, 2025
Joseph Coates assumed he was going to die as a result of a rare blood disorder. But his girlfriend decided to contact a doctor in Philadelphia who was using A.I. to find new uses for old drugs.Hannah Yoon for The New York Times
There is a “treasure trove of medicine that could be used for so many other diseases. We just didn’t have a systematic way of looking at it,” said Donald C. Lo, the former head of therapeutic development at the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences and a scientific lead at Remedi4All, a group focused on drug repurposing. “It’s essentially almost silly not to try this, because these drugs are already approved. You can already buy them at the pharmacy.”
The National Institutes of Health defines rare diseases as those which affect fewer than 200,000 people in the United States. But there are thousands of rare diseases, which altogether affect tens of millions of Americans and hundreds of millions of people around the world.
And yet, more than 90 percent of rare diseases have no approved treatments, and pharmaceutical giants don’t commit many resources to try to find them. There isn’t typically much money to be made developing a new drug for a small number of patients, said Christine Colvis, who heads drug development partnership programs at NCATS.
That’s what makes drug repurposing such “an enticing alternative” route to finding treatments for rare diseases, said Dr. Marinka Zitnik, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School who studies computer science applications in medical research. Dr. Zitnik’s Harvard lab has built another A.I. model for drug repurposing.
“Other laboratory discovery techniques have already put drug repurposing on the map,” Dr. Lo said. “A.I. just puts rocket boosters on that.”
. . . In labs around the world, scientists are using A.I. to search among existing medicines for treatments that work for rare diseases. Drug repurposing, as it’s called, is not new, but the use of machine learning is speeding up the process — and could expand the treatment possibilities for people with rare diseases and few options.
Thanks to versions of the technology developed by Dr. Fajgenbaum’s team at the University of Pennsylvania and elsewhere, drugs are being quickly repurposed for conditions including rare and aggressive cancers, fatal inflammatory disorders and complex neurological conditions. And often, they’re working.
The handful of success stories so far have led researchers to ask the question: How many other cures are hiding in plain sight? . . .
Finding Clues in Old Research
Repurposing is fairly common in pharmaceuticals: Minoxidil, developed as a blood pressure medication, has been repurposed to treat hair loss. Viagra, originally marketed to treat a cardiac condition, is now used as an erectile dysfunction drug. Semaglutide, a diabetes drug, has become best known for its ability to help people lose weight.
The first time Dr. Fajgenbaum repurposed a drug, it was in an attempt to save his own life. At 25, while in medical school, he was diagnosed with a rare subtype of a disorder called Castleman disease, which led to an immune system reaction that landed him in the intensive care unit.
There is no one way to treat Castleman disease, and some people don’t respond to any of the available treatments. Dr. Fajgenbaum was among them. Between hospitalizations and rounds of chemo that temporarily helped, Dr. Fajgenbaum spent weeks running tests on his own blood, poring over medical literature and trying unconventional treatments.