KS4 Drug development and clinical trials
Ugly Cures *suitable for home teaching*
A fantastic video which illustrates the importance of biodiversity when it comes to finding new drugs and compounds. It's short, so makes a good starter to a lesson on new medicines.
Where Do Medicines Come From?
This information booklet describes the phases of clinical trials and the use of animals for testing new drugs.
Drugs *suitable for home teaching*
This activity is based around a simulation of a pharmaceutical company planning future spending. It gives students the chance to role-play various characters working for the company and to consider which pharmaceutical they should develop.
Testing New Medicines *suitable for home teaching*
This article provides detailed information for students on the process of testing new drugs, from laboratory tests to clinical trials.
People and Process
Developing a medicine takes about 10 to 12 years and involves a number of phases. This resource looks at the researchers involved and the timeline of a medicine's development, and helps students to understand why drug development is so expensive.
Double Blind
This Science upd8 activity draws on clinical trials. Eight young volunteers had been in clinical trials before, but this time things went horribly wrong. Six of the eight were left fighting for their lives.
In this discussion activity students consider whether new treatments should be ever tested on human volunteers.
Clinical Trials
This resource has links to a number of resources which can be used to generate discussion and debate on clinical trials.
Magic Bullet
Students trace the developments in drugs and medicines that led to modern chemotherapy. The activity focuses on 'magic bullets' - chemicals that target disease-causing organisms.
The activities would be suitable after work on drugs and disease. Questions from the second activity could also be used for homework, before or after the first activity. If students have access to computers, the first part of ‘A story of drug discovery’ could be done on screen
