All topics › AQA GCSE Biology › Discovery and development of drugs3.1.9 Discovery and development of drugsAQA GCSE Biology (8461), Higher tier · Infection and response › Communicable diseases
Practise Discovery and development of drugs. 14 exam-style questions plus unlimited generated ones on this subtopic, at up to four difficulty levels, with full mark schemes and a progress tracker. Free, no account needed.
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Many drugs were first extracted from living organisms. The painkiller aspirin originates from which plant?Willow Sample questions Written for this site in the style of AQA exam questions. They are not taken from real past papers.
Question 1 Easy 5 marks
Many drugs were first extracted from living organisms.
(a) Which drug originates from foxgloves?one box.[1]
Aspirin Digitalis Paracetamol Penicillin (b) The painkiller aspirin originates from which plant?[1]
(c) Which scientist discovered penicillin?[1]
(d) Penicillin was discovered in a type of mould.[1]
(e) Most new drugs are now made by chemists in the pharmaceutical industry.[1]
Show the answer and mark scheme (a) Answer: Digitalis
(c) Answer: Alexander Fleming
(e) the starting point for a new drug may be a chemical extracted from a plant / plants may contain chemicals that could be useful drugs Question 2 Medium 7 marks
New drugs are tested before they can be used to treat patients.
(a) New drugs are tested for toxicity, efficacy and dose.[3]
(b) Preclinical testing is done in a laboratory.two things that drugs are tested on during preclinical testing.[2]
(c) The first clinical trials use healthy volunteers who are given very low doses of the drug.[2]
Show the answer and mark scheme (a) toxicity: whether the drug is harmful / has harmful side effects efficacy: whether the drug works / how well it works dose: how much of the drug should be given (and how often) (c) to check that the drug is safe / has no harmful side effects (in humans) a low dose reduces the risk of harm if the drug turns out to be toxic Question 3 Hard 8 marks
Scientists have found a chemical in a plant that may be useful as a drug to treat a type of cancer.
(a) Describe how this chemical would be developed and tested before doctors could prescribe it to patients.[6]
(b) In trials of new cancer drugs, patients in the control group are usually given the best existing treatment rather than a placebo.[2]
Show the answer and mark scheme (a) chemists may extract the chemical or synthesise / modify it in the laboratory preclinical testing in a laboratory using cells and tissues then preclinical testing on live animals the drug is tested for toxicity, efficacy and dose clinical trials start with healthy volunteers given very low doses to check that it is safe then trials on patients with the cancer to see whether it works further trials to find the optimum dose double-blind trials: patients randomly put into groups; neither doctors nor patients know who has the new drug large numbers of patients are used and the trial is repeated results are published only after peer review Marked with levels of response: the full level descriptors are in the app.
(b) it would be unethical to give patients with a serious disease no treatment / a placebo (so) the new drug is compared with the existing treatment to see whether it is better Related subtopics
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