{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,14]],"date-time":"2026-02-14T07:34:29Z","timestamp":1771054469918,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":33,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,1,4]],"date-time":"2022-01-04T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1641254400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Molecules"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Drug repurposing is an emerging strategy, which uses already approved drugs for new medical indications. One such drug is gemcitabine, an anticancer drug that only works at high doses since a portion is deactivated in the serum, which causes toxicity. In this review, two methods were discussed that could improve the anticancer effect of gemcitabine. The first is a chemical modification by conjugation with cell-penetrating peptides, namely penetratin, pVEC, and different kinds of CPP6, which mostly all showed an increased anticancer effect. The other method is combining gemcitabine with repurposed drugs, namely itraconazole, which also showed great cancer cell inhibition growth. Besides these two strategies, physiologically based pharmacokinetic models (PBPK models) are also the key for predicting drug distribution based on physiological data, which is very important for personalized medicine, so that the correct drug and dosage regimen can be administered according to each patient\u2019s physiology. Taking all of this into consideration, it is believed that gemcitabine can be repurposed to have better anticancer effects.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/molecules27010291","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,1,7]],"date-time":"2022-01-07T03:46:27Z","timestamp":1641527187000},"page":"291","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":10,"title":["Two Possible Strategies for Drug Modification of Gemcitabine and Future Contributions to Personalized Medicine"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"27","author":[{"given":"Mariana","family":"Pereira","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"OncoPharma Research Group, Center for Health Technology and Services Research (CINTESIS), Rua Doutor Pl\u00e1cido da Costa, 4200-450 Porto, Portugal"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1283-1042","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Nuno","family":"Vale","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"OncoPharma Research Group, Center for Health Technology and Services Research (CINTESIS), Rua Doutor Pl\u00e1cido da Costa, 4200-450 Porto, Portugal"},{"name":"Department of Community Medicine, Health Information and Decision (MEDCIDS), Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, Alameda Professor Hern\u00e2ni Monteiro, 4200-319 Porto, Portugal"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,1,4]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"e05948","DOI":"10.1016\/j.heliyon.2021.e05948","article-title":"Drug combination and repurposing for cancer therapy: The example of breast cancer","volume":"7","author":"Correia","year":"2021","journal-title":"Heliyon"},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"434","DOI":"10.1016\/j.bbcan.2019.04.005","article-title":"Drug repurposing in oncology: Compounds, pathways, phenotypes and computational approaches for colorectal cancer","volume":"1871","author":"Scapozza","year":"2019","journal-title":"Biochim. 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