Medical Interventions Unit 1.1 Test

What do medical interventions help do?

Medical interventions help maintain health and homeostasis in the body.

What can a variety of methods do?

A variety of methods can be used to detect and/or identify infectious agents.

What is a medical intervention?

The act of intervening, interfering or interceding with the intent of modifying the outcome. In medicine, an intervention is usually undertaken to help treat or cure a condition.

Any measure whose purpose is to improve health or alter the course of a disease.

What are the main categories of the interventions that function to maintain human health?

treatments, diagnostics, and equipment

How do scientists gather evidence during the potential outbreak of an infectious disease?

-recording patients' symptoms and find similarities with other patients
-isolate bacteria in a lab
- go to affected areas and determine the origin
- DNA sequences can be used to identify disease pathogens since they alter the DNA sequences

What is bioinformatics?

The collection, classification, storage, and analysis of biochemical and biological information using computers especially as applied in molecular genetics and genomics.

How can DNA sequences be used to identify disease pathogens?

They can find genes that are associated with the pathogen

You can compare the DNA of the pathogen with a data base of known pathogens to identify it.

What is an antibody?

An antigen-binding immunoglobulin, produced by B cells, that functions as the effector in an immune response.

How do antibodies identify and inactivate antigens?

- they use shape recognition
- the proteins of cells are configured to specific antibodies, so the foreign antigens bind to the specific antibodies that inactivate them

Each antibody will only bind to one specific antigen and those bound antibodies will inactivate the pathogen and recruit lymphocytes to kill the pathogen

How can the ELISA assay be used to detect disease?

Add antigen, add primary antibody, secondary antibody, add substrate, look for color change

Why is it important for doctors to know the concentration of disease antigen present in a patient's system?

The concentration tells doctors who started the infection and it can also tell them how long the patients been infected for

- explains how serious the disease antigen is
- the more the disease the easier it is to diagnose patients

What steps do scientists take to diagnose, treat, and prevent future spread of a disease outbreak?

-symptoms are noted
-origin of pathogen is determined/incubation time
-tests like blood tests to determine antibodies & antigens
-preventative measure like quarantining

Antigen

A foreign macromolecule that does not belong to the host organism and elicits an immune response

Bioinformatics

The collection, classification, storage, and analysis of biochemical and biological information using computers especially as applied in molecular genetics and genomics

Concentration

The amount of a specified substance in a unit amount of another substance

ELISA (Enzyme-linked immunosorbent Assay)

A quantitative in vitro test for an antibody or antigen in which the test material is absorbed on a surface and exposed either to a complex of an enzyme linked to an anti-immunoglobulin specific for the antibody followed by reaction of the enzyme with substrate to yield a colored product corresponding to the concentration of the test material

Detects and measures antibodies in your blood

Enzyme

A protein serving as a catalyst; a chemical agent that changes the rate of reaction without being consumed by the reaction

Genome

The complement of an organism's genes; an organism's genetic material

Medical Intervention

Any measure whose purpose is to improve health or alter the course of disease

Outbreak

A sudden rise in the incidence of a disease

Pathogen

A specific causative agent of disease

Primer

A molecule (a short strand of RNA or DNA) whose presence is required for formation of another molecule (a longer chain of DNA)

Serial dilution

A stepwise dilution of a substance in solution

Solute

A substance dissolved in another substance

Solution

A homogeneous mixture of two or more substances, which may be solids, liquids, gases, or a combination of these

Solvent

A substance, usually a liquid, capable of dissolving another substance

Substrate

The reactant on which an enzyme works

ELISA Test

1. The sample is added to a plastic well, where the proteins are bound to the cell wall. A detergent washes away unbound proteins while preventing more proteins from binding to the cell wall.
2. The Primary Antibody binds to a specific antigen in the cell. Excess is washed away.
3. The Secondary Antibody, which is bound to the enzyme, is added. Excess is washed away.
4. The enzyme substrate is added, causing the liquid to turn blue (oxidation)