Exploring Antimalarial Drugs

Read the daily message and record notes of important points and deliverables. (5 min)

Open your pinned Daily Message Notes• Interns should add today’s date and the subject of

the message (Drugs to Treat Malaria) at the top

of the note. All of the notes they take for this

message should fall under this heading.

• Add (Copy/Paste) summary of deliverables and/or

important information under heading.

NSEI 4.1 WARM-UP

Interns interpret two types of visual representations of a malaria parasite population to

understand the distribution of drug resistance traits.

NSEI ANALYZING DIAGRAMS AND HISTOGRAMS

Key Points:• Using a single-drug treatment results in the distribution of traits in a

malaria population that shift toward having more resistance to the drug used in that treatment.

• Once there is high resistance to a drug, that drug may no longer effectively treat malaria and the population will increase.

• Preventing an increase in the total population of malaria parasites is a constraint of this engineering problem.


Each parasite is

represented once on each

histogram.

Each pair of histograms (top

and bottom) show the same

population visualized in two

different ways

1. sorted according to the

parasites’ resistance to

Red Drug (top histogram

in the set),

2. and then sorted

according to the

parasites’ resistance to

the Blue Drug (bottom

histogram in the set).


•The histograms on the left

show the initial population,

before any drug was

applied. The histograms on

the right show the same

population after treatment

with Red Drug. It is clear

that the distribution of traits

have shifted.


•The top histograms show

changes in the number of

individuals with traits for

resistance to Red Drug (red

stripes) at a some specific

points in time. The bottom

set of histograms reflects

the same population, but

focusing on the number of

individuals with traits for

resistance to Blue Drug

(blue stripes).


•Trace the connection

between the initial

population diagram and

each histogram set, pointing

out how the one individual

with high resistance to Red

Drug is shown in the top

histogram, and the

remaining five individuals

account for none (no traits

for resistance to Red Drug).

The fact that some parasites

have blue stripes

(resistance to Blue Drug) is

of no interest when

constructing the Red Drug

histogram.


•Repeat this same thought

exercise using the Blue

Drug and the histograms at

the bottom of the projection:

there is one individual with

the trait for high resistance

to Blue Drug (two blue

stripes), one with some

resistance (one blue stripe),

and the remaining four have

no traits for resistance to

Blue Drug.


•Why has the percentage of the

population with high resistance

to Red Drug increased?

•Because the treatment that

used the Red Drug didn’t kill

those individuals with high

resistance to Red Drug, so

more survived and can continue

to reproduce.


•Why has the percentage of the

population with high resistance

to Blue Drug decreased?

•Because the treatment that

used Red Drug killed most of

those individuals with no

resistance to Red Drug. Even if

the individuals had a high

resistance to a different drug

(Blue), that did not help them in

the presence of Red Drug, and

they were killed.


•What do you expect to see if

you treat the same initial

population with the Blue Drug?

•The percentage of the

population with traits for

resistance to Blue Drug will

increase, but the percentage of

population with traits for

resistance to Red Drug will

decrease.


•Note that many individuals with

resistance to Blue Drug

survived the use of that drug

and then reproduced, passing

their traits for resistance to the

offspring.


• Recall the MalariaMed histograms showing the traits

for resistance to three different drugs: A, B, and C.

NSEI 1.4.2 READING ANTIMALARIAL DRUG RESISTANCE

Interns use Active Reading to learn about and then summarize the characteristics of the antimalarial drugs they can use in their malaria treatments.

Open the Futura Biomedical Engineer’s Dossier.

Selecting the link in the Daily Message and use the table of

contents to navigate to Chapter 5: “Antimalarial Drugs.”

• Today’s research describes the characteristics of each drug and how they affect the project criteria. Review the three project criteria, if desired.

• Locate the Pros and Cons of Antimalarial Drugs table from Analyzing Single-Drug Treatments sheet from the previous day. Add items to the table as you read.

• Actively read and annotate this section of the Dossier.

https://drm.learning.amplify.com/ereader/#/reader/dde7aa64-c6ce-42e1-973a-6e20e4f5d622

NSEI 4.2 READING ANTIMALARIAL DRUG RESISTANCE

Key Points

• Different drugs are more or less effective at killing parasites than

others. More effective drugs will shift the distribution of traits

toward drug resistance more quickly.

• Different drugs cause different patient side effects, some of which

can interfere with an effective drug treatment if the side effects are

more serious. Review the meaning of the words mild, moderate,

and severe, as necessary.

• It is important to consider cost when designing malaria treatments so that it is accessible to those who need it most.

NSEI 4.2 INVESTIGATING MALARIAMED VARIABLES

Interns continue to run isolated tests in MalariaMed to understand how different drugs, doses, and numbers of

treatment days affect the project criteria.

• List the things you can

change in MalariaMed.

• drug type,

• drug dose,

• number of days.


• What variable was

isolated in the single-

drug treatment analysis.

• Drug type: for each

test we used only

one drug: A, B, or C

• In those single-drug tests you were testing for the effects of each drug

type; you isolated the drug type variable, and kept the number of days

and dose size the same in each test.


• When you did the single-drug treatments tests, you gathered data about how each drug type affected a malaria treatment, keeping dose size and number of days the same.

• Today, you will use MalariaMed to investigate these questions by isolating different variables: either number of days or dose size.

How do you think you could use

MalariaMed to figure out how dose size

might affect a single-drug treatment?


For today’s testing you and your

partner are going to vary the size of

the dose, and the number of testable

days.

For example:

One partner could test Drug A for

three days at large doses while

the other partner tests Drug A for

three days at small doses. Interns

could then do another test for a

different number of days or for a different drug.


Review the histograms with each test

and record observations, just as you

did yesterday during the Analyzing Single-Drug Treatments task.

Complete at least three tests, and

discuss your results and record your

ideas on the Conclusions table.


Summarize your conclusions for Total Parasite Population.

If you don’t use enough

days of the drug, too many

parasites can survive and

the population will increase.

If you use larger doses,

more parasites will die

(depends on drug) and the population will increase.


Summarize your conclusions for Drug Resistance.

When using large doses, the

percentage of resistance is higher

after 10 years, and you see

parasites with high resistance in

fewer years compared to small

doses. When using one drug for

only 1–3 days, the percentage of

resistance is smaller after 10

years, and it takes more years to

see parasites with high resistance

compared to treatments that are 5–7 days.


Are the trends the same for all

drugs? Discuss why or why not..

Drug B already has individuals

with high resistance so using only

that drug results in the majority

(larger percent) of population with

traits for high resistance in fewer

years. Drug C is the least

effective drug, so it takes longer

to see parasites with high

resistance, or the final percentage is lower compared to other drugs.


Summarize your conclusions for Patient Side Effects.

In general, fewer days

of a drug result in lower

side effects, but it

depends on the drug.

Small doses of a drug

result in lower side effects.


Summarize your conclusions for Total Cost.

Fewer days of a drug

result in lower costs

(depends on drug).

Smaller doses cost less

so treatment costs are lower.


Use evidence from the Dossier to help

explain why you are seeing these results.

If you don’t use large enough doses, even

those individuals with some resistance can

survive and reproduce to pass on their

traits; Those individuals with no resistance

are more likely to survive a low dose, and

all surviving individuals have a chance of

producing offspring that develop mutations

for stronger drug resistance; If you don’t

use drugs for enough days, you will see

something similar—more individuals

surviving, reproducing, and possibly

producing offspring which have developed

traits for higher drug resistance through mutation.


What might happen to the population if more than one drug is used?

Resistance would be

minimized because it is likely

that the second drug would kill

the parasites that were

resistant to the first drug.

NSEI 4.3 AFTER-HOURS WORK

Complete the Project Summary form as a prewriting activity for the introduction of the final proposal.

You have worked with the

different antimalarial drugs

today and have learned

more about how each

contributes to the various

project criteria. This form will

be submitted to our project

leader Ken so he can see

what interns understand

about the project and some

early ideas about malaria treatment designs.

NSEI 4.3 AFTER-HOURS WORK

Exploring Antimalarial Drugs

Education

Transcript of Exploring Antimalarial Drugs