AI-driven drug reposition for pathogens: a new paradigm in pandemic preparedness

Faced with a severe outbreak of diseases caused by newly emerging and recurrent pathogens, the development cycle of traditional drugs is long, making it difficult to meet emergency needs. Drug repositioning has become a key strategy for rapidly providing therapies by exploring new therapeutic uses of approved drugs. However, traditional reposition methods have bottlenecks such as slow speed and strong randomness. Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing drug reposition by analyzing and integrating multi-source data with computational models, dramatically accelerating the discovery process. This article summarizes the core technological approaches of AI-driven drug reposition, including predictions based on network medicine, virtual screening through deep learning models, and association discovery via real-world data mining. Multiple successful cases are presented to verify their effectiveness. Although there are still challenges in terms of data quality, model interpretability, and clinical translation, AI will undoubtedly reshape our drug development paradigm for addressing future public health crises, serving as a pivotal engine for rapid response and precise intervention.