Antibiotics/ medicine

Question 1

How does antibiotic resistance develop? (5)

Answer 1

1. In a bacterial disease, the bacteria starts to produce mutations.
2. Some mutations allow some bacteria to withstand being in contact with antibiotics and survive, called ‘resistant’
3. Other mutations are killed when exposed to the medicine
4. This leaves more resources for the resistant to thrive and they reproduce their advantage against this antibiotic.
5. This makes more resistant bacteria.

Question 2

Why do some cases of bacterial diseases worsen after medication?

Answer 2

If someone with the disease is prescribed with antibiotic for a course of days and does not complete the course, they risk some of the more resistant bacteria surviving from the initial antibiotic, resulting in them being able to reproduce and make the person iller.

Question 3

What is an antiseptic?

Answer 3

A substance used to kill bacteria on the external body.

Question 4

What is an antibiotic?

Answer 4

A substance to kill bacteria on the inside of the body

Question 5

What is a disinfectant?

Answer 5

A substance to sterilise surfaces of bacteria.

Question 6

What’s the use of aspirin?

Answer 6

To cure fevers, painkiller and anti-inflammatory.

Question 7

What’s the use of penicillin?

Answer 7

To destroy bacterials infections

Question 8

What’s the use of digitalis?

Answer 8

To increase blood flow by affecting the hearts muscle.

Question 9

How do bacteria cause disease?

Answer 9

They produce toxins on the surfaces of cells which make them unwell.

Question 10

How do viruses cause disease?

Answer 10

They reproduce inside the cell, until it bursts and releases its offspring.

Question 11

Why can’t we used antibiotics to cure viral diseases?

Answer 11

We can’t cure viral diseases with antibiotics as antibiotics only function outside of living cells, whereas viruses function inside the cells, making the viral disease inaccessible. If we did, this would damage the living cells instead of curing them.

Question 12

Antibiotic resistance if causing problems in most hospitals, explain why: (4)

Answer 12

When we are prescribed with antibiotics we have to risk the bacteria mutating and producing more resistant bacteria before they. are killed. this means if we do not complete the course, we risk not fully killing especially the more resistant ones, causing a more sever disease. this is caused when doctor’s over prescribe patients with lots of antibiotics, which give bacteria to be exposed to more antibiotics and evolve to withstand the effects.

Question 13

What are tissue cultures?

Answer 13

A modern way of cloning tissues and cells, making many out of one.

Question 14

What is the placebo test?

Answer 14

When a group are given false medication to eradicate any unconscious bias

Question 15

What do we mean by toxic?

Answer 15

When a substance causes harmful side effects that could result in death

Question 16

What does (optimum) dosage mean?

Answer 16

The (best) amount of a medicine that can be taken to kill a disease

Question 17

What its the double blind placebo effect?

Answer 17

Helps eradicate unconscious bias in a drug testing experiment by making the patients and doctors unaware of who takes the real medicine.

Question 18

What does clinical mean?

Answer 18

Using healthy volunteers.

Question 19

What does efficacy mean?

Answer 19

How efficient something is

Question 20

What are the stages of developing a new drug, include explanations: (7)

Answer 20

1. New chemicals are synthesised in a lab or are harvested from organic medicine.
2. They move onto cultured cell and tissues, to determine whether they could be safe for biotic cells.
3. The few that pass this test then move to animal tests, to observe how well they cope with whole organisms, here they can test the doses and have an insight to the side effects that come with the new drug.
4. They then go further onto clinical trials with healthy volunteers, where they can see if the drug is safe for healthy humans, here we can see the side effects specific to humans and test out suitable doses.
5. Then a small group of patients are given the drug to see its effectiveness of its intended purpose, to see if it actually cures their disease.
6. Double blind placebo trials are then continues on, to make it more precise, this is so that we do not experiment with it on a biased perspective, as both the doctors and the patients don’t know who had which effective drug, therefore everyone is monitored equally.
7. It the goes through multiple papers and gets licensed for prescriptions, in which the side effects are constantly monitored during its time.

Question 21

What do bacteria need to survive?

Answer 21

Temperature, humidity, food.

Question 22

By what process do bacteria multiply and how is it different to mitosis?

Answer 22

Binary fission is different than mitosis as it doesn’t have chromosomes to multiply.

Question 23

Describe two experiments where you have to culture your own bacteria, including explanations to certain measures:

Answer 23

Using a solid culture medium (sloan):
1. Sterilise table with disinfectant and wash hands (to prevent the culturing of another type of bacteria which may not be safe to humans).
2. Get equipment, set up the bunsen burner onto of a heat proof mat and light it with a blue flame.
3. Get inoculating loop and fire it until it glows (to sterilise it of bacteria)
4. In one hand open the container with the culture medium and gently scrape some of the culture off onto the loop, then briefly are the top and screw the lid back on.
5. Using the aseptic technique, swab the loop onto the Petri dish.
6. Secure the ld with tape making sure not to completely seal it (to allow the bacteria to survive and to avoid the risk of culturing an anaerobic bacteria which is more dangerous)

Question 24

What are the four conditions of developing a new drug?

Answer 24

• efficacy- is it efficient (does it kill the disease)
• stability -are you able to store it and use it for a long amount of time
• safety- is it toxic or have deadly side effects.
• is it able to reach its target and be expelled from the body

Question 25

What is a monoclonal antibody?

Answer 25

a protein that is produced from a single hybridoma cell that binds specifically to one type of antigen, making them able to target specific cells / chemicals in the body.

Question 26

What is an antibody?

Answer 26

an antibody is a substance produced by white blood cells part of the immune system, that marks foreign antigens and inactivates/ destroys them.

Question 27

Give an example of a painkiller:

Answer 27

paracetamol
aspirin
digitalis

Question 28

Give an example of an antibiotic:

Answer 28

penicillin

Question 29

What is a clone?

Answer 29

a group of genetically identical cells / organisms.

Question 30

State three ways how a monoclonal antibody is used to treat disease:

Answer 30

-recognise and mark the location of the pathogen, to trigger the immune system so white blood cells can come to the area and destroy it.
-block out growth receptors of the cancer cell so it stops growing.
-they can carry toxins/chemicals/ radiation to deliver to the pathogen, without harming the healthy cells so no more damage occurs.

Question 31

What are the advantages and disadvantage of monoclonal antibodies?

Answer 31

adv:
-they are more specific than drugs, and don’t harm healthy cells as they only target its complimentary sites.

disadv:
-expensive to develop but can come cheaper with technology
-radiotherapy can damage healthy cells.
-can be rejected by body