B6

Question 1

what does vaccination involve?

Answer 1

• introducing small amounts of dead or inactive forms of a pathogen into your body to stimulate the white blood cells to produce antibodies.
• if the same live pathogen then re-enters the body, the white blood cells respond quickly to produce the correct anitbodies, preventing infection

Question 2

herd immunity

Answer 2

-if a large proportion of the population is immune to the pathogen, the spread of the pathogen is reduced

Question 3

what is an antigen?

Answer 3

• a unique protein on a cells surface

- it induces an immune response in the body

Question 4

what is an antibody?

Answer 4

-a blood protein produced in response to and countering a specific antigen

Question 5

what do painkillers do?

Answer 5

-treat the symptoms of disease but do not kill the pathogens that cause it

Question 6

what antibiotics do?

Answer 6

-antibiotics cure bacterial diseases by killing the bacterial pathogens inside your body

Question 7

why are antibiotics not the complete answer to the problem of infectious diseases?

Answer 7

• antibiotics do not destroy viruses because viruses reproduce inside cells. It is difficult to develop drugs that can destroy viruses without damaging your body cells
• strains of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics are evolving

Question 8

how antibiotics work?

Answer 8

-antibiotics kill the bacteria that cause disease whilst they are inside your body

Question 9

where were drugs traditionally extracted from?

Answer 9

-plants, for example, digitalis, or from microorganisms, for example, penicillin

Question 10

who discovered penicillin?

Answer 10

-Alexander Fleming from the Penicillum mould.

Question 11

a good medicine is:

Answer 11

• effective-must prevent or cure a disease or make you feel better
• safe-must not be too toxic or have unacceptable side effects for patient
• stable-must be able to use medicine under normal conditions and store for sometime
• successfully taken into removed from your body-must reach its target and be cleared from your system once it has done its work

Question 12

preclinical drug testing in the laboratory uses:

Answer 12

• cells
• tissues
• live animals

Question 13

drugs that pass animal testing move on to clinical trials

Answer 13

drugs that pass animal testing move on to clinical trials

Question 14

what do clinical trials use?

Answer 14

• healthy volunteers and patients

- low doses are used to test for safety, followed by higher doses to test for optim does

Question 15

what is a double blind trial?

Answer 15

• some patients are given a placebo that does not contain the drug and some are given the mew medicine
• neither the doctor nor the patient know who received the real drug or the placebo until the trial is complete