Recently, the College of Pharmacy of Nankai University's research project "Drug research and development technology and application based on pathological-pharmacological mechanism translation combined with the conventional drug in new use" won the first prize of the "China Invention and Entrepreneurship Achievement Award" organized by China Association of Inventions. 

As the first completion unit, the College of Pharmacy of Nankai University, worked with Tianjin International Joint Academy of Biomedicine to jointly develop this drug R&D technology for the development of drugs urgently needed in clinical practice. This technology can be used to quickly identify new indications for drugs from drugs on the market, innovative drugs undergoing clinic practice, or drugs derived from natural products, improve the efficiency and success rate of drug development, and promote new drug development. 

The drug R&D technology has an innovative drug research system that is oriented to pathology, drug targets and clinical evidence-based research. Based on the existing drug database, mechanism of drug action, pathological mechanism network, multidimensional omics data analysis, research on chemical biological drug target, virtual screening matchmaking and other methods, this technology has a crossover analysis network of pharmacological and pathological mechanism, and screens drugs on the market and monomer of Chinese traditional herbs for corresponding diseases from the perspective of pathological-pharmacological combination. The molecule-cell-model animal disease models are used for clinically oriented pharmacological research on primary screening molecules, and preclinical-clinical evidence-based research is performed. Moreover, based on the drug reorientation strategy oriented to clinical evidence-based research, the side effects of "old drugs" can be further analyzed, and the main components that have side effects can be identified using metabolomics, high-resolution mass spectrometry and other technologies. Then, the side effects of drugs are transformed into the main pharmacodynamic effects through changing the method of administration or modifying the chemical structure. Further preclinical and clinical research can be performed to make it a new and effective pathway for development of innovative drugs.

This technology system has been applied to many research and development projects of drugs urgently needed in clinical practice. The drugs developed have been granted two domestic clinical trial approvals and have entered the clinical trial stage, facilitating the development of international clinical trials of new drugs. At the same time, many monomers of Chinese traditional herbs have been applied to new purposes, laying the foundation for the clinic trials of these drugs. Based on this technology, it has applied for 34 invention patents, obtained 13 authorized patents (5 international patents), and undertaken five national, provincial and ministerial projects. 

According to the website of China Association of Inventions, the Invention and Entrepreneurship Award, which was approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China in 2005 and established by China Association of Inventions, is the first supreme award for inventors in China. 

(Edited and translated by Nankai News Team)