IPAD@ZJU is designed for users who focus on drug repositioning research. In this webserver, a scoring system was designed for drug repositioning based on similarity comparison between drug targets and diseases genes by integrating overlap-based, functional-similarity based and network-based methods.
Using this webserver, users could find new indications for approved, withdraw and experimental drugs, or find potential drugs for the diseases under investigation. For example, metformin, a first-line drug for diabetes mellitus treatment, is predicted by IPAD@ZJU as a potential drug for Alzheimer’s disease, breast cancer and brain cancer, which were supported by recent publications.
Users could also find new drug indications by providing a drug-target list or potential drugs by providing disease related genes. Disease related genes could be automatically identified from uploaded gene expression data based on third-party gene-regulatory network identification tools. In addition, with an interactive drug-gene-disease network visualization supported by CytoscapeWeb, users could explore further mechanisms for drug repositioning.
In summary, by collecting exhaustive information and providing analytic tools for drug repositioning research, IPAD@ZJU significantly saves time for users without bioinformatics skills. With years of efforts, we are now confident that IPAD@ZJU is of excellent quality to serve the community of drug repositioning and model of action research as a useful tool and reliable resource. Therefore, we would like to submit it to NAR for publishing with other high quality databases.