Pathogens and Antibiotics

Question 1

What are pathogens?

Answer 1

Micro-organisms

Question 2

Give some examples of micro-organisms.

Answer 2

Bacteria and Viruses.

Question 3

What do pathogens cause?

Answer 3

Disease

Question 4

What is the difference between bacteria and viruses?

Answer 4

Bacteria release toxins whereas viruses damage our cells.

Question 5

How can white blood cells help us get rid of infectious disease?

Answer 5

They ingest and destroy pathogens by producing antibodies that destroy the infectious micro-organisms.

Question 6

What types of cells are bacteria?

Answer 6

Living cells that can multiply rapidly.

Question 7

Give some examples of diseases caused by bacteria.

Answer 7

Food poisoning
Cholera
Typhoid
Whooping cough

Question 8

How do viruses reproduce?

Answer 8

Inside host cells, damaging them.

Question 9

What happens once the virus has made thousands of copies of itself?

Answer 9

They fill the host cells and burst it open.

Question 10

How do viruses spread throughout the body?

Answer 10

The bloodstream and the airways.

Question 11

Give some examples of diseases caused by viruses.

Answer 11

Flu
Colds
Measles
Mumps
Rubella
Chicken Pox
AIDs

Question 12

What are antibodies and antitoxins?

Answer 12

Specialised proteins.

Question 13

What are antigens?

Answer 13

Chemicals in a pathogen that are foreign to the body.

Question 14

What are lymphocytes?

Answer 14

Certain white blood cells that can produce specific antibodies to kill a particular pathogen.

Question 15

How do antibodies neutralise pathogens?

Answer 15

They bind to pathogens and damage and destroy them.

They coat pathogens and clump them together so that they are easily ingested by white blood cells called phagocytes.

Question 16

What are phagocytes?

Answer 16

White blood cells that engulf clumps of pathogens.

Question 17

What is vaccination?

Answer 17

It involves putting a small amount of an inactive form of a pathogen, or dead pathogen, into the body.

Question 18

What do vaccinations do?

Answer 18

Produce enough white blood cells to protect itself against a pathogen.

Question 19

What are antibiotics effective against?

Answer 19

Bacteria, but not viruses.

Question 20

What do vaccinations contain?

Answer 20

Live pathogens treated to make them harmless.
Harmless fragments of the pathogen.
Dead pathogens.

Question 21

How do we prevent the risk of infection?

Answer 21

Maintain personal hygiene and keep hospitals clean.

Question 22

Who realised the importance of cleanliness in hospitals?

Answer 22

Ignaz Semmelweiss

Question 23

What do painkillers do?

Answer 23

Relieve the symptoms of an infectious disease but do not kill the pathogen involved.

Question 24

What are some examples of painkillers and what they do.

Answer 24

Paracetamol, morphine and aspirin block nerve impulses from the nervous part of the body, or block nerve impulses travelling to the part of the brain responsible for perceiving pain.

Question 25

What are antibiotics?

Answer 25

Substances that kill bacteria or stop their growth.

Question 26

Why do antibiotics not work against viruses?

Answer 26

Because they live and reproduce inside cells. Drugs that kill viruses can kill the body's tissues.

Question 27

What was the first antibiotic, who discovered it and when?

Answer 27

Alexander Fleming discovered Penicillin in 1928.

Question 28

What happens because of natural selection?

Answer 28

Bacterial strains can develop a resistance to the antibiotics. This is when in large groups of bacteria, some bacteria are not affected by the antibiotic. These cells survive and reproduce, producing even more bacteria that are not affected by the antibiotic.

Question 29

What does MRSA stand for?

Answer 29

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus

Question 30

What is MRSA?

Answer 30

A dangerous strain of bacterium that is resistant to most antibiotics.

Question 31

How can we avoid other strains of resistant bacteria?

Answer 31

Avoid the unnecessary use of antibiotics. | Complete the full course of antibiotics.

Question 32

How do resistances develop?

Answer 32

Step 1 - Antibiotics kill individual pathogens of the non-resistant strain. Step 2 - Resistant individual pathogens survive and reproduce. Step 3 - The population of the resistant pathogens increases.

Question 33

How can we produce the development of resistant strains of bacteria?

Answer 33

Avoid using antibiotics for infections that are not serious, such as mild throat infections.

Question 34

Who discovered how to grow bacteria in a petri dish and when?

Answer 34

Robert Koch in 1878.

Question 35

Which diseases did Robert Koch discover?

Answer 35

TB and Cholera.

Question 36

How do we grow bacteria in a sterile environment?

Answer 36

Petri dishes, nutrient agar jelly and other culture media must be sterilised. Inoculating loops used to transfer micro-organisms must be sterilised by passing it through an inoculating loop. The lid of the Petri dish is sealed with sticky tape to stop micro-organisms from the air getting in and contaminating the culture.

Question 37

Why is it dangerous to grow bacteria at body temperature?

Answer 37

Because it might allow the growth of pathogens harmful to health.