Scientists find new uses for existing drugs by mining gene-activity data banks

Source: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-scientists-drugs-gene-activity-banks.html

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have paired up medicines and maladies with help from a molecular "Match.com." When the scientists applied an "opposites attract" algorithm to publicly available databases, surprising sparks flew: They found potential compatibilities between numerous existing drugs and diseases for which those drugs had never before been thought to be beneficial.