Drug Development - 5.20

Fighting Disease – Edexcel GCSE (1SC0): Combined Science

In this course, Dr Matt Ivory (Cardiff University) discusses how we fight disease covering topics 5.20-5.25 in the Pearson Edexcel GCSE Biology Specification (9-1) for Combined Science. We begin with: (i) how we make drugs used to treat disease, taking us through the story of how drugs are first developed, used in clinical trials and how weighing up the pros and cons of a drug result in their approval or rejection (Topic 5.20); following (ii) this we define non-communicable diseases and discuss some examples such as the diseases that can result from poor diet or smoking (Topic 5.23, 5.24); then we finish (iii) up by taking a deep dive into cardiovascular disease (Topic 5.25).

Drug Development - 5.20

In this first mini we look into how drugs are developed to fight disease, as brought up in topic 5.20 of The Pearson Edexcel (9-1) Biology specification. We start by discussing what drugs are and how they are made. Then break down some of the stages of how these drugs are tested in clinical trials. Then finish with discussing the use of placebos and how drugs are approved to go market.