Applications of molecular docking in natural products-based drug discovery

Natural products have a long history of use in the treatment of various diseases particularly in developing countries. The use of compounds of natural origin as lead compounds for the development of conventional drugs is widely recognised. Natural product-based drug discovery efforts in developing countries mostly involve the use of crude extracts in in-vitro and/or in-vivo assays. There are limited efforts at isolating active principles for structure elucidation studies. Studies that isolate pure secondary metabolites and characterize their structures have limited bioactivity evaluations. In conventional drug discovery programs, molecular docking serves as a useful tool for predicting interactions of small molecules with drug target(s) to guide synthesis decisions. Medicinal chemists use this tool to predict and synthesize compounds likely to have pharmacological activity and thus save time and cost for drug discovery. Efforts have been made to incorporate molecular docking techniques into natural products-based drug discovery. The objective of this review is to discuss molecular docking in natural product drug discovery programs with the goal of providing easy-to-understand information to help beginners interested in incorporating molecular docking in their research. This is expected to enhance natural product screening programs by predicting which phytochemicals are likely to show success, especially in new disease situations such as COVID-19. Applications in the repositioning of plants for emerging conditions are also discussed. © 2023

Unmasking covid-19 vaccine “infodemic” in the social media

The activities of the anti-vaccine crusaders and conspiracy theorists on social media platforms have influenced billions of people across the globe on the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines currently been used for immunizations. The increased social media mis/disinformation on the efficacies and safety of these vaccines developed have raised a global concern among all stakeholders. This study adopted a convenience sampling through an online survey to collect data from N=1800 participants (students) from five (5) public universities in Accra the national capital of Ghana, which is also the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic to examine their perceptions on the overabundance COVID-19 pandemic information on social media and how these pieces information consumption impacts their trust/mistrust/distrust in the COVID-19 vaccines. The findings of our study indicate that there exist vital levels of COVID-19 vaccines “infodemic” on social media and these overabundances of COVID-19 vaccine information on social media has caused great levels of fear and panic among the students and the public. We also found that, the high exposure to COVID-19 vaccine information on social media are associated with negative perceptions and higher levels of mistrust/distrust among the population. This study recommends that stakeholders such as WHO, policymakers, and accredited health institutions must embark on public health communication campaigns to educate the public on the credible sources of COVID-19 pandemic information on social media. © 2021 by authors;licensee OJCMT.