Chapters authored
Drug Repurposing in Dermatology: Molecular Biology and Omics Approach By Farid A. Badria and Abdullah A. Elgazar
The withdrawal of several blockbuster drugs due to severe adverse effects and the failure of several developed drugs in clinical trials raised questions about the efficacy of current approaches of drug discovery. Moreover, the limitation of resources and the long and costive process of drug discovery made a lot of pharmaceutical companies to employ drug repurposing strategies to get new insights about activities that were not considered during their initial discovery. The development of therapeutics for treatment of dermatological condition is not considered as priority although it affects the lifestyle of thousands of people around the world. Serendipity and observations have contributed significantly in this field but immerse efforts have been exerted to find systematic methods to identify new indications for drugs, especially with the unprecedented progress in molecular biology and omics. So, in this chapter, we will emphasize on different approaches used for drug repositioning and how it was applied to find new therapeutics for different dermatoses.
Part of the book: Drug Repurposing
Radiopharmaceuticals: On-Going Research for Better Diagnosis, Therapy, Environmental, and Pharmaceutical Applications By Farid A. Badria
Radiopharmaceutical material is a pharmaceutical product or drug that may exert spontaneous degradation of unstable nuclei with nuclear particles or photons emission. Radiopharmaceuticals may be used in research, diagnosis, therapy, and environmental purposes. Moreover, radiopharmaceuticals act as radioactive tracers among patients via gamma-ray emissions. Therefore, the uses of radiopharmaceuticals as diagnostic agents may be given to patients to examine any biochemical, molecular biology, physiological, or anatomical abnormalities. Therapeutic radiopharmaceutical may be administered internally for therapeutic purposes via selective effect on certain abnormal cells or organs. The best known example for therapeutic radiopharmaceuticala is iodide131 for thyroid ablation in among patients with hyperthyroid. A third class of radiopharmaceutical is drug labeling which mainly used in research by using small amount of radioactive substances not for diagnostic purposes, but to investigate the metabolism, bio-distribution, pharmakodynamic, and pharmakokinetic of certain drugs in a nonradioactive form. This chapter focuses mainly on basic fundamentals of radiopharmaceutical chemistry, preparation, environmental, pharmaceutical, diagnostic, therapeutic, and research applications.
Part of the book: Radiopharmaceuticals
Research on Natural Phenolic Compounds in FAB-Lab: Nonconventional Industrial, Pharmaceutical, and Therapeutic Applications By Farid A. Badria
Phenolic compounds represent one of the secondary metabolites of plants with pharmaceutical and therapeutic applications. Flavonoids, quinones, bioflavonoids, neo-lignans, xanthones, curcuminoids, tannins, and coumarins are some examples of the major groups of commonly available phenolic compounds in our daily foods, beverages, and spices. From this standpoint, the Liver Research Laboratory (FAB Lab) at Mansoura university, Egypt, established a multidisciplinary research (chemistry, molecular biology, bioinformatics, pharmacology, and pharmaceutics) based on utilization of commonly abundant natural products from plants and agricultural wastes, especially phenolic compounds to meet the goal of applied scientific research in pharmaceutical industry, environment, public health, and to furnish a sustainable well-developed globe. Examples of our concerted efforts, for over 30 years, are in the area of natural products and utilization of environmental waste containing phenolic compounds for various health disorders (cancer, cataract, degenerative diseases, hyperpigmentation, hyperglycemia, skin disorders), nano-, green and click chemistry. This chapter presents a practical model from FAB-Lab to maximize the benefits from phenolic natural products that have not been optimally exploited to establish meaningful scientific applied research. Patents, innovations, and significant publications indexed by the Web of Science and Scopus databases in the journals that occupy the 1st and the 2nd quartile will be presented.
Part of the book: Phenolic Compounds
Perspective Chapter: Repurposing Natural Products to Target COVID-19 – Molecular Targets and New Avenues for Drug Discovery By Farid A. Badria
World Health Organization (WHO) declared on March 11, 2020, coronavirus disease, which erupted in December 19th, 2019 in Wuhan, China (COVID-19) as worldwide pandemic disease. Researchers worldwide were successful to provide a prophylactic approach via developing several vaccines, which were swiftly approved by WHO under Emergency Use Listing (EUL) status. So far, lopinavir, chloroquine, azithromycin, hydroxychloroquine, favipiravir, umifenovir, ribavirin, remdesivir, and darunavir have been tested clinically. Hydroxychloroquine, favipiravir, and chloroquine exhibited a high ratio of distribution for the lung and were reported to minimize viral tonnage in respiratory system of many COVID-19 cases. However, none of the tested drugs showed a conclusive, safe, and efficient activity against COVID-19. This prompted many experts in drug discovery to fetch in the treasure of many available old drugs of natural origin to repurpose based upon their well-studied pharmacology, pharmacodynamics, virtual screening, and artificial intelligence studies. In this review chapter, we will address the repurposing of natural products and their derivatives to be used in treatment of COVID-19 via targeting host cells machinery and viral proteins either in early stages by blocking virus entry to cells or lately through inhibition of viral replication.
Part of the book: Antiviral Drugs
Metformin: A Small Molecule with Multi-Targets and Diverse Therapeutic Applications By Farid A. Badria, Ahmed R. Ali, Ahmed Elbermawi, Yhiya Amen and Adel F. Badria
Metformin is one of the most prescribed agents in the treatment of type 2 diabetes. Its history goes back to the use of goat’s rue (Galega officinalis Linn., Fabaceae). G. officinalis is rich in galegine, a guanidine derivative with a blood glucose-lowering effect. Research based on the effects of guanidine rich on this traditional herbal medicine led to the development of metformin. Metformin continues to serve as a multi-target drug. Its benefits for treating/controlling several diseases were thoroughly discovered over time. These include health disorders such as cancers, obesity, periodontitis, cardiovascular, liver, skin, and renal disorders. Moreover, there is evidence to propose that metformin postpones the aging processes as well as modulates the microbiota to promote better health. So far, it is not fully understood, how metformin can accomplish such pleiotropic pharmacological and therapeutic effects. Metformin may decrease malignancy via suppressing the signal of insulin/IGF-1, avoiding the release of cytokines via NF-κB, and increasing the immune reaction to cancer cells. This chapter discusses the history of metformin discovery, chemistry, its role in diabetic patients, and proposed molecular mechanisms to shed more light on the diverse effects and its ability to target multiple signaling pathways.
Part of the book: Metformin
Perspective Chapter: Integrated Network Pharmacology and Multiomics Approach to Elucidate the Repositioning of Fatal Food Toxins to Lifesaving Anticancer Drug By Farid A. Badria and Mohamed Foda
This research investigates repurposing potato glycoalkaloids as lifesaving anticancer drugs. There is integration of network pharmacology with multiomics. Solanine, chaconine, and their hydrolysis products’ pharmacokinetics were tested using SwissADME. Solanine and chaconine targets were identified via reverse pharmacophore mapping. Through database mining, 26 solanine and chaconine targets were found in cancer genes. To understand gene function, KEGG and GO analyses were done. STRING was used to create a protein-protein interaction network to find similarities between chemicals and cancer. To find prognostic genes in various cancers, CytoHubba in Cytoscape identified hub genes and GEPIA2 did survival analysis. ADME testing for solanine and chaconine medication candidates failed. Their glycosylation boosted solubility and P-glycoprotein inhibition. Cancer targets shared by both drugs were elevated in cancer-related pathways such as Pi3k-Akt1 and HIF-1. Cell death control and programmed cell death genes were enriched in gene ontology study. We built a protein-protein interaction network with 26 nodes and 38 edges. The hub genes were STAT3, TLR4, FGF2, IL2, NFKB1, AR, CHUK, TRIM24, NOS3, and KDM1A. Survival research showed that these genes predict cancer prognosis. We found that solanine and chaconine may interact with cancer-related genes to fight cancer. Discovery of hub genes with prognostic significance sheds light on glycoalkaloids’ anticancer processes.
Part of the book: Poisoning
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