Scientists Find New Uses for Approved Drugs

Scientists are using computer programs that analyze drug data and genetic information to discover new uses for medicines already on the market.

Scientists are matching up two online computer programmes, one that catalogues gene activity and another that monitors drug effects, to discover new uses for old medicines.

The research by Stanford University scientists published in Science Translational Medicine proved that by searching through a National Institute of Health database, which catalogues the results of genomic studies, symptoms of diseases could be matched with the effects of drugs, yielding 1,000 potential new treatments.

For example scientists found that GSK's Tagamet, a nonprescription ulcer medication could be used to treat lung cancer.

The same process, which searches for drugs that have an opposite effect on gene activity l