B6 - Preventing And Treating Diseases Flashcards
Vaccinations
A dead or altered form of a disease is injected into the body, as a result white blood cells produce complementary antibodies which engulf the pathogen
Painkillers
Chemicals which reduce the symptoms but do not kill the pathogen
Antibiotics
Substances which slow down the growth of bacteria
Only cure bacterial diseases, not viral ones
Antibiotic resistance
When bacteria survives to the exposure of antibiotics due to mutations in genes
Why does bacteria become antibiotic resistance?
Patients don’t finish the full course of antibiotics
Development of drugs
Scientists first research
Pre-clinical trials are tested on cells and tissues (test for efficacy and side effects)
Pre-clinical trials on animals (test for side-effects)
Human clinical trials on healthy volunteers (testing for dosage)
Given to the public
Toxicity
How safe are they for humans
Dosage
How much of the drug is needed
Efficacy
How effective is the drug
Monoclonal antibodies
Identical copies of one type of antibody
Process of making monoclonal antibodies
B lymphocytes (white blood cells that do not divide) are harvested from rats
Tumor cells (do not divide) merge with the B lymphocytes
This forms a hybridoma
Many of these are created through cloning
They are purified and separated, ready for use
Monoclonal antibodies in pregnancy tests
When you urinate on the test strip the HCG antibodies with blue beads will flow to the HCG monoclonal antibodies and bind together, this create the blue colour on the test strip
