Types of Pathogens & Drug Trials PDF

Types of pathogens and their causes: Cholera called vibrio cholerae a symptom of this pathogen is diarrehoea it is causes by dirty water to stop it leave access to clean water Tuberculosis a bacterium called mycobacterium tuberculosis symptoms are coughing and lung damage can be contracted through...

Types of pathogens and their causes: Cholera called vibrio cholerae a symptom of this pathogen is diarrehoea it is causes by dirty water to stop it leave access to clean water Tuberculosis a bacterium called mycobacterium tuberculosis symptoms are coughing and lung damage can be contracted through the air when infected individuals cough infected people should avoid crowds of people and sleep in a well ventilated home alone Malaria is a protist that causes damage to red blood cells and in severe cases the liver mosquitos act as vectors (carriers) of the disease they pass on the protist to humans but dont contract the disease themselves to avoid this disease use mosquito nets and insect repellent to avoid being bit Chalara ash dieback is a fungus that infects ash trees, causes leaf loss on the trees and bark lesions. Carried through the wind and also when ash trees are moved between areas Removing young infected ash trees and restricting the importing and movement of young ash trees Using a microscope to achieve a magnification: Step 1: your specimen needs to let light through so take a thin slice of it Step 2: get a clean slide and drop a drop of water on the slide using a pipette to secure the specimen in place and then place it on Step 3:if you’re specimen is translucent then add a stain to make the different parts more visible Step 4:then use tweezers to place a cover slide ontop of the specimen and secure it in place with no air bubbles Step 5: select the lowest power objective lense Step 6: use the coarse focus knob until the specimen is nearly in focus Step 7: then use the find adjustment knob to focus the specimen until it is in clear focus Step 8:if you need to see the specimen with a higher magnification then switch to another lens and repeat the process Human genome project: Thousands of scientists all over the world collaborated to bring human genes together to find every human gene the project started in 1990 and a complete map of the human genome including the location of around 20500 genes was completed in 2003 Now that all the genes have been found scientists are trying to figure out what they do Up till now about 1800 genes related to disease have been found which could greatly help medicine If this science continues then scientists could figure out which genes cause common diseases like heart disease and cancer which could help doctors advise us on the best ways to avoid certain diseases. With the human genome project it is a lot easier to identify the alleles for inherited diseases like cystic fibrosis and other diseases or entirely avoid them. This research could also identify a cure for these diseases This also brings the problem of employers discriminating to people who are likely to get a disease and deny them from a job or life insurance could get very expensive to get for people with these problems, people that are susceptible to these diseases could also be pressured by friends or family to not have children in the fear of passing this disease down. Drug trials and the different steps in them: First a drug has to be discovered which can happen in a lot of different ways for example penicillin was discovered because when a scientist was clearing out his petri dishes he seen that there was no bacteria around the mould in his petri dish this was because it was producing penicillin which was killing the bacteria 2:now the scientists mostly find molecules that could be used as drugs to fight the diseases 3: if a drug has been found it has to undergo clinical and preclinical trials Preclinical testing: 1 First the drugs are tested on human tissue or blood to see the effects of the drug on the body however this cannot be used on drugs for stuff like testing blood pressure in this situation they normally use an animal. 2: the next step is to test the drug on a animal to find out stuff like the best dosage is it toxic or harmful and if it produces the effect you are looking for Clinical testing 1 if it succeeds the animal trial then it is used on human volunteers in a clinical trial 2 first the drug is tested on healthy volunteers to make sure the drug does not have adverse effects on humans with fully functional bodies. 3 if this result is good then they can move on to testing the drug on humans with the illness to see how it is working 4 then the doctors usually move on to do a blind trial which means they get 2 groups of people to test it on and one group is given a sugar pill (placebo) and the other group is given the real pill to make sure the data is accurate sometimes the doctors will even do a test were both the doctors and patients do not know if the pill is placebo or not to not let doctors show a bias towards patients