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Updated: Aug 5, 2026

Drug Repurposing Hypothesis Generation Using the "RE:fine Drugs" System
Published on: December 11, 2016
Drug repurposing opportunities across 92 CNS-related conditions using deep learning and whole-genome sequencing
Yichuan Liu1, Hui-Qi Qu1, Frank D Mentch1
1Center for Applied Genomics, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA.
Abstract:
CNS-related conditions span tumors, vascular, neurodevelopmental, and psychiatric disorders, yet therapeutic development for CNS disorders continues to face persistent delays and high attrition due to blood-brain barrier constraints, biological heterogeneity, and limited predictive models. Drug repurposing can shorten development timelines but requires scalable, mechanism-grounded prioritization. We curated 213 approved/clinical-stage drugs with KEGG pathway signatures and integrated them with whole-genome sequencing (WGS) pathway-importance profiles from 4392 individuals across 92 diagnoses. For each diagnosis and variant class, the top 30 KEGG pathways were defined as the core signature. Drugs were linked to diagnoses by pathway overlap, excluding on-label indications and infection-only supports, and ranked using a composite Repurposing Score integrating drug maturity/evidence, diagnosis-specific pathway concordance, and WGS-derived genetic support. Score-weight sensitivity analyses increased the contribution of genetic support. Evidence support was assessed by automated screening of publications and ClinicalTrials.gov records. Collectively, 906 drug-linked shared pathways yielded 12,040 unique repurposing pairs; 25.4% were supported by three or more variant classes. Downstream validation-priority annotation identified 1430 high-confidence drug-diagnosis pairs after stratifying candidates by cohort size, variant-class support, supporting-pathway count, and broad KEGG disease-module support. Frequently implicated mechanisms included RTK-MAPK/PI3K, VEGF, immune/checkpoint, and neurotrophin signaling. Variant-class-resolved WGS pathway prioritization coupled to curated pharmacology enables scalable cross-diagnosis repurposing using existing drugs, recovering clinically explored strategies and generating genetically supported hypotheses for biomarker-guided validation.
Insights
This study developed a novel method to identify existing drugs for repurposing in central nervous system (CNS) disorders by integrating drug pathways with genetic data, accelerating therapeutic development for complex brain conditions.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Pharmacology
- Genomics
Background:
- Central nervous system (CNS) disorders face therapeutic development challenges including blood-brain barrier issues and biological complexity.
- Drug repurposing offers a faster route but needs effective, mechanism-based prioritization strategies.
Purpose of the Study:
- To create a scalable, genetically informed approach for prioritizing drug repurposing candidates for CNS disorders.
- To link approved or clinical-stage drugs to CNS diagnoses using pathway analysis and whole-genome sequencing (WGS) data.
Main Methods:
- Curated 213 drugs with KEGG pathway signatures and integrated them with WGS pathway-importance profiles from 4392 individuals across 92 diagnoses.
- Developed a Repurposing Score based on drug maturity, pathway overlap, and WGS genetic support, excluding on-label and infection indications.
- Assessed evidence using publication and ClinicalTrials.gov screening, identifying high-confidence drug-diagnosis pairs.
Main Results:
- Generated 12,040 unique drug-diagnosis repurposing pairs, with 25.4% supported by multiple genetic variant classes.
- Identified 1430 high-confidence drug-diagnosis pairs after stratification, highlighting key mechanisms like RTK-MAPK/PI3K and immune signaling.
- Demonstrated the utility of variant-class-resolved WGS pathway prioritization for scalable, genetically supported drug repurposing.
Conclusions:
- This integrated approach enables efficient identification of existing drugs for CNS disorder repurposing.
- The method provides genetically supported hypotheses for biomarker-guided clinical validation.
- Facilitates the recovery of clinically explored strategies and generation of novel therapeutic avenues for brain conditions.

