discovery & development of drugs

• what plant is the heart drug digitalis extracted from?

  foxglove
• where does the painkiller aspirin originate from?

  willow bark
• what antibiotic was discovered by Alexander Fleming from a type of mould?

  penicillin
• why do new medical drugs have to be tested & trialed?

  to check they're safe & effective
• what are new drugs tested for?

  • toxicity
  • efficiacy
  • dose
  • interaction w other drugs
• how is preclinical testing carried out?

  in a laboratory using cells, tissues & live animals
• how is clinical testing carried out?

  • uses healthy volunteers & patients
  • very low doses of the drug are given to healthy people
  • if drug is safe, its tested on patients on a larger scale to find the optimum dose
  • in double blind trials, one group recieve a placebo
• what is a single blind trial?

  only the doctor knows who is recieving the placebo
• what is a double blind trial?


  neither the patient nor doctor know who recieves the placebo