Antibiotics and painkillers

• What do painkillers do?

  Relieve the symptoms of a specific disease, but do not kill the pathogens
• What was the first antibiotic that was discovered

  Penicillin - 1928 by Alexander Fleming
• How do antibiotics work?

  They damage the bacterial cells, having the abilities to cure some bacterial diseases that would have previously killed many people
• Why can't viral diseases be cured by antibiotics?

  As they reproduce inside the host's cells
• Why is it difficult to develop antiviral drugs?

  As they might damage the host's cell whilst killing the virus
• Describe how viruses affect a host's cell

  • Virus enters the cell
  • Substances in the cell begin to strip off the virus's outer coat of protein
  • The nucleic acid in the centre of the virus is released
  • Nucleic acids get into the cell's chemical manufacturing system
  • The cell ignores its own chemical needs, switching to make new viruses
  • The cell is destroyed, and many viruses are released to infect other cells