WATCH: This large collection of drugs is being mined for new treatments

WATCH: This large collection of drugs is being mined for new treatments

Inside STAT: A massive collection of medicines is mined for new treatments

A MEDICINE MINING ROBOT. (ALEX HOGAN / STAT)

Scientists at the California Institute for Biomedical Research have created a massive library — but instead of books, it's stocked with almost all the small-molecule drugs ever approved by the FDA. The researchers are using the collection to hunt for new uses for existing drugs. They start by pinpointing a disease in need of new treatments. Then, a robot rapidly hits samples of a disease-causing pathogen with the entire library of drugs to see if one might work. STAT's Alex Hogan visited the lab in La Jolla and has an interesting new video about the work — watch here.