Drug Repurposing for SARS-COV-2 Using Molecular Docking

ABSTRACT

Drug repurposing is an unconventional approach that is used to investigate new therapeutic aids of existing and shelved drugs. Recent advancement in technologies and the availability of the data of genomics, proteomics, transcriptomics, etc., and with the accessibility of large and reliable database resources, there are abundantly of opportunities to discover drugs by drug repurposing in an efficient manner. The recent pandemic of SARS-COV-2, that caused the death of 6,245,750 human beings to date, has tremendously increase the exceptional usage of bioinformatics tools in interpreting the molecular characterizations of viral infections. In this paper, we have employed various bioinformatics tools such as AutoDock-Vina, PyMol etc. We have found a leading drug candidate Cepharanthine (CEP) that has shown better results and effectiveness than recently used antiviral drug candidates such as Favipiravir, IDX184, Remedesivir, Ribavirin and etc. This paper has analyzed CEP's potential therapeutic importance as a drug of choice in managing COVID-19 cases. It is anticipated that proposed study would be beneficial for researchers and medical practitioners in handling SARS-CoV-2 and its variant related diseases. © 2022 IEEE.