New drugs are not enough‑drug repositioning in oncology: An update.

Drug repositioning refers to the concept of discovering novel clinical benefits of drugs that are already known for use treating other diseases. The advantages of this are that several important drug characteristics are already established (including efficacy, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics and toxicity), making the process of research for a putative drug quicker and less costly. Drug repositioning in oncology has received extensive focus.

Homology Model and Docking-Based Virtual Screening for Ligands of Human Dyskerin as New Inhibitors of Telomerase for Cancer Treatment.

Immortality is one of the main features of cancer cells. Tumor cells have an unlimited replicative potential, principally due to the holoenzyme telomerase. Telomerase is composed mainly by dyskerin (DKC1), a catalytic retrotranscriptase (hTERT) and an RNA template (hTR).

Novel insights into the evolution and structural characterization of dyskerin using comprehensive bioinformatics analysis.

Dyskerin is a conserved nucleolar protein. Several related genetic diseases are caused by defects in dyskerin. We hypothesized that having a comprehensive bioinformatic analysis of dyskerin will help to develop new drugs for this diseases.

Neurogenic differentiation of human adipose-derived stem cells: relevance of different signaling molecules, transcription factors, and key marker genes.

Since numerous diseases affect the central nervous system and it has limited self-repair capability, a great interest in using stem cells as an alternative cell source is generated. Previous reports have shown the differentiation of adipose-derived stem cells in neuron-like cells and it has also been proved that the expression pattern of patterning, proneural, and neural factors, such as Pax6, Mash1, Ngn2, NeuroD1, Tbr2 and Tbr1, regulates and defines adult neurogenesis. Regarding this, we hypothesize that a functional parallelism between adult neurogenesis and neuronal differentiation of human adipose-derived stem cells exists.

Transcriptional characterization of Wnt and Notch signaling pathways in neuronal differentiation of human adipose tissue-derived stem cells.

Since the nervous system has limited self-repair capability, a great interest in using stem cells is generated to repair it. The adipose tissue is an abundant source of stem cells and previous reports have shown the differentiation of them in neuron-like cells when cultures are enriched with growth factors involved in neurogenesis. Regarding this, it could be thought that a functional parallelism between neurogenesis and neuronal differentiation of human adipose stem cells (hASCs) exists.