This analysis presents a systematic evaluation of the extent of therapeutic opportunities that can be obtained from drug repurposing by connecting drug targets with disease genes. When using FDA-approved indications as a reference level we found that drug repurposing can offer an average of an 11-fold increase in disease coverage, with the maximum number of diseases covered per drug being increased from 134 to 167 after extending the drug targets with their high confidence first neighbors. Additionally, by network analysis to connect drugs to disease modules we found that, on average, drugs target 4 disease modules, yet the similarity between disease modules targeted by the same drug is generally low and the total number of disease modules targeted per drug increases from 134 to 230 when drug targets are extended Moreover, our results highlight that drug repurposing is more dependent on target proteins shared between diseases than on polypharmacological properties of drugs. We apply our drug repurposing and network module analysis to COVID-19 and show that Fostamatinib is the drug with the highest module coverage.

The Regional Student Group of Spain is recognized by the Student Council and the International Society for Computational Biology. The objective of these institutions is to connect and share useful information among all professionals and students working in the field of bioinformatics and computational biology. In this article, we intend to present and publicize RSG-Spain, the Spanish ISCB regional student group, by relating its recent history of a growing community of students and young professionals and how it helps their development in the field. RSG-Spain, since its creation, has been involved in the organization of events with the aim of gathering bioinformaticians in the country and promoting research and collaboration in the field. Here the VIII Student Symposium held online in 2021 is presented, analyzing the output of the event and showing the main challenges found in its organization.

En este especial momento de la evolución cultural humana es indiscutible que el principal papel que le corresponde a la educación en tanto herramienta que permita la constante reconstrucción y creación de cultura, es el de brindar oportunidades a los alumnos a fin de que éstos desarrollen habilidades para continuar aprendiendo en forma autónoma: es el concepto de "aprender a aprender", presente en numerosa bibliografía de uso cotidiano para los docentes. Esta constituye sin duda una valiosa capacidad abierta, cuya adquisición posibilita a su vez continuar aprendiendo durante toda la vida, en la medida en que cada individuo cree y guíe su propio aprendizaje.