Module 4 BIOLOGY OF DISEASES Flashcards
defined as any abnormality or failure of the body to function properly and this may require medical treatment
Disease
CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF DISEASES
Every disease has a number of characteristic features.
These features allow diseases to be categorized and allow a better understanding of the disease, its diagnosis and management.
A correct diagnosis should mean that appropriate treatment is given.
refers to the cause of a disease.
ETIOLOGY
Etiological agents can be :
Endogenous
Exogenous
originating from within the body.
Ex. genetic defects and endocrine disorders.
Endogenous
coming from outside the body.
Ex. Microorganisms that causes infections, physical trauma and radiation.
Exogenous
Some diseases have more than one etiological agent and may, indeed, be caused by a range of factors. Such diseases are said to be _______.
ex. Diabetes mellitus type 2,
multifactorial in origin
Diabetes mellitus type 2, a disorder of carbohydrate, fat and protein metabolism, is believed to have a ______ involving several genetic, dietary and environmental factors
multifactorial origin
Many diseases are of unknown cause and are said to be
Idiopathic
Some conditions are caused by the effects of treatment and are called
Iatrogenic diseases
Every disease has a _____ that describes the
development of the disease or, more specifically, how the etiological agent(s) acts to produce the clinical and pathological changes characteristic of that disease.
PATHOGENESIS
Some examples of how diseases
undergo pathogenesis include:
Inflammatory
Carcinogenesis
reactions in response to harmful agents
Inflammatory
where the formation of tumors occurs as a result of exposure to carcinogens (cancer inducing substances).
Carcinogenesis
Diseases have ‘_____’ that describe the
typical patterns of how each disease usually
progresses., its effects and its duration
natural histories
The effects of the disease on the patient are referred to as
Proportion of ilness in a population.
Morbidity
While the possibility of a disease-causing death,
usually expressed as a percentage it is called
Incidence of deaths in a population.
Mortality
Some diseases have a rapid, often severe onset that is described as____. This condition symptoms appear and change or worsen rapidly, as in heart attacck.
acute
However, other diseases have a ____ onset and
develop gradually over a relatively longer time. A ____ condition develops and worsens over an extended period of time, as in astherosclerosis.
chronic
Diseases rarely occur immediately following exposure to an _______.
etiological agent
In most cases, a period of time, the _____,
must elapse before the disease becomes apparent.
incubation period
In carcinogenesis, this period may last several
decades and is referred to as the _____.
latent period
The etiology of a disease and its pathogenesis produce clinical manifestations that include signs and
symptoms of the disease.
MANIFESTATIONS OF DISEASES
is an indication that a disease is present and something of which the patient complains, for example, nausea, malaise or pain
symptom
is something that the clinician specifically looks or feels for, such as redness or swelling of the skin, when examining the patient.
A sign
Diseases often have a range of manifestations and
their presence and severity may vary from patient to
patient.
In addition to differences between individuals,
differences occur within an individual at different
stages of development, from infancy to old
age.
N/A
What is the relation between knowing The Biology of
disease in Discovering And developing of medicines??
The mechanisms of life are revealed when we
understand their molecular details. Hence, molecular understanding of biology plays the major role in guiding drug discovery, and molecular-level understanding of biology is fundamental in developing diagnostic methods.
Drug discovery and systems biology began together: in traditional or ‘folk’ medicine, herbal drugs were discovered through direct if anecdotal observations in people with diseases, the most relevant complex
biological systems there are.
With the advent of chemistry in the late 1800s and early 1900s, derivatives of natural products and subsequently novel synthetic chemicals made their way into drug discovery Pipelines.
N/A
Most of today’s pharmaceuticals derive directly or indirectly from such early ‘systems biology’-based drug discovery
The goal of modern systems biology is to understand physiology and disease from the level of molecular
pathways, regulatory networks, cells, tissues, organs and ultimately the whole organism.
N/A
encompasses many different approaches and models for probing and understanding biological complexity, and studies of many organisms from bacteria to man.
‘Systems biology’
Much of the academic focus is on developing fundamental computational and informatics tools required to integrate large amounts of reductionist data (global gene expression, proteomic and
metabolomic data) into models of regulatory networks and cell behavior.
N/A
Three principal approaches recent advances in the practical applications of systems biology to drug discovery:
- Informatic integration of ‘omics’ data sets
- Computer modeling of disease or organ system
physiology from cell and organ response level information available in the literature - Use of complex human cell systems themselves to
interpret and predict the biological activities of drugs and gene targets.
