Knowledge Graph-Based Approaches to Drug Repurposing for COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic has motivated researchers all over the world in trying to find effective drugs and therapeutics for treating this disease. To save time, much effort has focused on repurposing drugs known for treating other diseases than COVID-19. To support these drug repurposing efforts, we built the CAS Biomedical Knowledge Graph and identified 1350 small molecules as potentially repurposable drugs that target host proteins and disease processes involved in COVID-19. A computer algorithm-driven drug-ranking method was developed to prioritize those identified small molecules. The top 50 molecules were analyzed according to their molecular functions and included 11 drugs in clinical trials for treating COVID-19 and new candidates that may be of interest for clinical investigation. The CAS Biomedical Knowledge Graph provides researchers an opportunity to accelerate innovation and streamline the investigative process not just for COVID-19 but also in many other diseases.