Pralatrexate, a chemotherapeutic drug originally developed to treat lymphoma, could be repurposed to treat COVID-19—a current ongoing pandemic. The discovery was due to the efforts of novel computational drug screening strategy along with necessary lab experiments.
"We have demonstrated the value of our novel hybrid approach that combines deep-learning technologies with more traditional simulations of molecular dynamics," says Haiping Zhang of the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology in Shenzhen, China.
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Findings were published in the journal PLOS Computational Biology and suggest that pralatrexate could possibly be therapeutic. However, since the drug was originally based on chemotherapy it can prompt unwanted side-effects. Nevertheless, results are still positive as it points to the advantages of virtual screening.
Source: Science Daily
