U3 Immunity: Use of antibiotics and antiviral drugs

Question 1

Define antibiotics

Answer 1

Chemical drugs that are able to inhibit the growth of or kill microorganisms, particularly bacteria

Question 2

Can antibiotics be used to treat viral infections?

Answer 2

No

Question 3

What was the first antibiotic identified?

Answer 3

Penicillin

Question 4

What are the two types of antibiotics in terms of function?

Answer 4

Bactericidal antibiotics
- Drugs that kill bacteria by changing the structure of the cell wall and cell membrane, or by disrupting the action of essential enzymes

Bacteriostatic antibiotics
- Drugs that stop bacteria from reproducing by disrupting protein synthesis

Question 5

What are the two types of antibiotics in terms of range?

Answer 5

Broad spectrum antibiotics
- Drugs that affect a wide range of different types of bacteria

Narrow spectrum antibiotics
- Drugs that are only effective against specific types of bacteria

Question 6

What is the issue with antibiotics?

Answer 6

• Some bacteria that antibiotics used to kill have gradually evolved and become resistant to them due to the overuse of antibiotics in medicine and agriculture
• In the early days of antibiotic use, the problem was easily solved by changing to a different antibiotic
• Today we are running out of options to switch to

Question 7

Define multiple drug resistance and total drug resistance

Answer 7

Multiple drug resistance:
- when a strain of bacteria is resistant to most available antibiotics

Total drug resistance:
- when a strain of bacteria is resistant to all antibiotics

Question 8

What is being done to reduce antibiotic drug resistance?

Answer 8

• International efforts are now being made to reduce the use of antibiotics so the development of further strains of drug resistant bacteria will be delayed
• Prevention of misuse and abuse of antibiotics will slow the development of resistance, but there’s no way of stopping it

Question 9

What strategies are being put in place to overcome antibiotic drug resistance?

Answer 9

• Development of new classes of antibiotics that bacteria don’t have resistance to
• Reviving old antibiotics by combining them with other substances
• Genetically engineering bacteria to disable antibiotic-resistant genes

Question 10

Define antivirals

Answer 10

Drugs used for the treatment of viral infections which inhibit the development of viruses

Question 11

Why are antivirals likely to be toxic to humans>

Answer 11

Because viruses replicate by using host cells to produce new virus particles, any drug that interferes with the virus replication is likely to be toxic to the host

Question 12

What did early research of antivirals involve?

Answer 12

• Culturing cells, infecting them with a virus then trying different chemicals to see if the amount of virus decreases
• This technique produced limited results

Question 13

What happened in the 1980s in terms of antiviral research?

Answer 13

• It became possible to determine the genetic sequences of viruses so scientists could find out exactly how they work
• Research today aims to identify viral proteins that can be distanced by specifically designed chemicals
• If the virus proteins are very different from human proteins, there should be few side effects from the use of these drugs