Antibiotics

• Inhibit processes but not the host organism e.g building of the bacterial cell wall, which prevents bacteria from dividing and eventually kills them
• Antibiotics don’t destroy viruses as viruses reproduce inside host cells so it is hard to destroy them without killing the host cells

Development of New Drugs

Pre-clinical testing:

1. Tested on human cells and tissues in a lab
2. Live animals

Clinical testing:

Tested on human volunteers in a clinical trial

1. Healthy volunteers
2. People suffering
3. Placebo

• Drugs are then approved by medical agency to make sure they are safe