B6-Preventing and treating disease Flashcards
What is meant by the term herd immunity?
If enough people are vaccinated against the pathogen, it will reduce the spread and eventually the disease may disappear
Why are vaccinations so important?
Because some pathogens can kill you before your white blood cells produce antibodies
What is a vaccination? How does it make a person immune?
A dead or inactive form of a pathogen is injected into a person. This stimulates the persons white blood cells to respond and produce antibodies as if the pathogen was alive. If you come in contact with the pathogen again, your white blood cells can quickly produce antibodies again as they have already come in contact with the pathogen
What are painkillers?
Drugs taken to help with the symptoms of diseases but they have no effect on the actual pathogen itself, don’t cure you faster, still have to wait for the body to overcome the pathogen
How do antibiotics work?
They work by killing the bacteria that causes the disease without harming your body cells. They are usually pills or syrups but sometimes put straight into your blood stream to ensure they reach the pathogen as fast as possible.
Can antibiotics work on multiple cells?
some can target multiple pathogens whereas some are specific to each pathogen.
Can antibiotics cure viral infections?
No, antibiotics cant kill viral pathogens
Why are viral diseases difficult to cure?
because viruses reproduce inside the cell and is difficult to kill them without harming body cells
What is an example of a drug extracted from a plant? What’s it’s use?
digitalis from the plant foxgloves- strengthen the heartbeat
How was penicillin discovered?
After a holiday, Alexander Fleming saw that on his agar jelly plates a mould had formed called penicillium but more importantly around it there were clear rings meaning the mould had killed the surrounding bacteria. Fleming called it penicillin from the mould and tried for many years to extract it into a juice but was unsuccessful.
What did Howard Florey and Earnest Chain do?
They tried to extract the penicillin and were successful. They gave it to a man suffering from blood infection and he recovered miraculously however later died as they didn’t have enough. but they made a huge discovery as they now knew that the penicillin killed the bacteria
Why are drugs tested?
to ensure they are effective, safe, stable- be able to use it and store it for long periods of time, and successfully taken in and removed from the body- once it’s killed the pathogen it should be able to leave the body
What is the process of drug testing?
Researchers test the toxicity and efficacy of the drugs on cells, tissues and organs. This process is called pre-clinical testing. Drugs that pass the animal tests move onto clinical trials which involve using healthy volunteers and eventually patients. If everything goes well in the clinical trials further research is taken place to figure out optimum dosage
What are placebo effects and what is a double blind trial?
Placebo doesn’t contain any of the drug and a double blind trial is where neither the doctor not patient know who has the placebo and who has the drug
What are monoclonal antibodies? How do hybridomas work?
Monoclonal antibodies are proteins that are produced that target specific chemicals or cells in the body.
Lymphocytes are white blood cells that can produce antibodies but cannot divide and tumour cells cant produce antibodies but can divide rapidly. If you fuse them together you get a hybridoma cell
