Chapter 6 - Preventing And Treating Disease Flashcards
What is meant by vaccination?
Introducing a dead or inactive pathogen into the body by injection or oral drops to stimulate the white blood cells to produce antibodies.
How do antibodies ‘recognise’ antigens?
By their shape.
Why is it not possible to treat viral diseases with antibiotics?
Viruses live inside body cells; destroying the virus would destroy the body cells.
Why are doctors concerned about the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
People would die of common bacterial infections if there were no effective antibiotics to treat them.
Who discovered penicillin?
Alexander Fleming
Name a plant that produces a chemical used as a medicine to treat the heart?
Foxglove
Why is it important to test new drugs?
To make sure they are effective, safe and stable, and can be taken into and removed from the body.
What is a clinical trial?
A trial of a new drug using human subjects, both healthy volunteers and patients.
What is an antibody?
A protein that targets an antigen of a particular shape.
What is a hypridoma?
A cell that has been formed from two different cells, for example, a mouse lymphocyte and a cancer (tumour) cell.
State three ways that monoclonal antibodies can act to treat a diseased cell.
Carry a radioactive substance or drug to a diseased cell; trigger the immune response to destroy the diseased cell; block receptors and stop the cell dividing.
What is the main advantage of using monoclonal antibodies to treat cancer?
Monoclonal antibodies target specific cancer cells and do not damage healthy cells.
