High-throughput Drug Repositioning for the Discovery of New Treatments for Chagas Disease

Abstract

Despite affecting around 8 million people worldwide and representing an economic burden above $7 billion/ year, currently approved medications to treat Chagas disease are still limited to two drugs, nifurtimox and benznidazole, which were developed more than 40 years ago and present important efficacy and safety limitations. Drug repositioning (i.e. finding second or further therapeutic indications for known drugs) has raised considerable interest within the international drug development community. There are many explanations to the current interest on drug repositioning including the possibility to partially circumvent clinical trials and the consequent saving in time and resources. It has been suggested as a particular attractive approach for the development of novel therapeutics for neglected diseases, which are usually driven by public or non-profit organizations. Here we review current computer-guided approaches to drug repositioning and reports on drug repositioning stories oriented to Chagas disease, with a focus on computer-guided drug repositioning campaigns.