B6 - Preventing And Treating Diseases

Question 1

How do vaccines work?

Answer 1

1) a weakened version of the pathogen is injected (still retains its antigens)
2) WBC produce antibodies and make copies of themselves
3) memory lymphocytes remain in the blood, providing a much more rapid response to the same pathogen in the future.

Question 2

What are antibiotics

Answer 2

Antibiotics damage bacteria and eventually kill them. Each different antibiotic interferes with a bacteria differently, e.g. destroying its cell wall

Question 3

What do antibiotics not do?

Answer 3

They do not kill viruses ( as viruses are inside your cells), protozoa or fungi
They don’t affect human cells either

Question 4

What is antibiotic resistance

Answer 4

When bacteria evolve rapidly they can mutate and produce new strains that the antibiotics does not recognise so there is no effective treatment.

Question 5

Bacteria growth and zones of inhibition

Answer 5

Bacteria growth can be monitored by measuring the area of a bacterial colony.
The efficiency / effectiveness of the antibiotic is determined on how big the zone of inhibition is.
The larger the zone of inhibition, the more effective the antibiotic is.

Question 6

How do you calculate area of the zone or inhibition?

Answer 6

Like a circle

PI x r2