Antibiotics And Other Medicines Flashcards
how do antibiotics work
- by inhibiting the process of bacterial cells
- but not the cells in the host organisms
what is an example of how antibiotics work
- some antibiotics inhibit the process of bacterial cells building cell walls
- this prevents the bacteria from dividing and eventually kills them
- but it has no effect on the cells of the human host which dont have cell walls
why is it important to be treated with the right antibiotic
because different antibiotics kill different types of bacteria
what cant antibiotics destroy and why
- they cant destroy viruses such as the flu or cold viruses
- because viruses produce using your bodys cells
- which makes it very difficult to develop drugs that destroy just the virus
- without killing the body cells
what is the very first step to the development of a drug
first the drug has to be discovered
what is an example of the first step of drug development begin followed
- penecillin was discovered by alexander fleming when he was clearing out petri dishes containing bacteria
- he noticed that one of the dishes had mould on it
- and the area around the mould was free of bacteria
- the mould was producing penecillin, which was killing the bacteria
what do scientists now use their knowledge of how a disease works for
trying and identifying molecules that could be used as drugs to fight the disease
what needs to be done once a new potential drug has been discovered and what are the two phases it has to go through
- it needs to be developed
- this involves preclinical and clinical testing
what happens during preclinical testing
- drugs are first tested on human cells and tissues in the lab
- next is to test the drug on live animals
- this is to test that the drug works to find out how toxic it is and to find the best dosage
why is there a limit to how effective it is to test on human cells and tissue
- you can’t use them to test drugs that affect whole or multiple body systems
- such as a drug for blood pressure having to be tested on live animals
what is the definition of a drug that works when you are testing it
it produces the effect you are looking for
what happens next if the drug passes the tests on animals and what is this stage called
- it is then tested on human volunteers in a clinical trial
- this is the clinical testing
who is the drug tested on first and why
- it is firstly tested on healthy volunteers
- to make sure that it doesnt have any harmful side effects when the body is working normally
what happens if the results of the healthy volunteers are good and what is done
- the drug can be tested on people with the illness
- the optimum dose is then found
what is the optimum dose
- the dose of the drug that is the most effective
- and has the fewest side effects
what is the process of testing the drug on ill people specifically
- patients are randomly put into two groups
- one is given a new drug and the other group is given a placebo
- this is to allow for the placebo effect
what is a placebo and what is the placebo effect
- a placebo is a substance that looks like the drug being tested
- but it doesnt do anything, like a sugar pill
- the placebo effect is when the patients expect the treatment to work and so feels better
- eventhough the treatment isnt doing anything
what does it mean if the clinical test is blind
- the patients in the study dont know whether they are getting the drug or the placebo
- if it is double blind, it means that neither the patients nor the doctors know until all the results have been gathered
why are some clinical tests double blind
so that the doctors monitoring the patients and analysing the results arent subconsciously influenced by their knowledge
what happens after a drug has passed all the preclinical and clinical tests
- it still needs to be approved by the medical agency
- before it can be used to treat patients
- all of this means that drugs are as effective and safe as possible
