Clinical Trials.....

So this week we have been working with clinical trials in Biology. Go Experimental Drugs! Since we are graded on proving that we actually learned something this week rather than just screwing around on the internet, I decided to write a post about what I learned, so here goes.....

Once upon a time in a world far far away, there was a brilliant scientist named Flinn who had just discovered an amazing new drug that seemed to cure severe lung cancer. In another part of the world a small child named Bob (lame right?) who had just been diagnosed with lung cancer, and had been given only 4 months to live because there was no cure for the cancer. Now Bob's doctor had just read an article about Flinn's drug and knew that it was entering into the clinical trial phase. Thinking that this was Bob's best hope Greg (the doctor) got Bob enrolled in the trial (Yay!). Now the trial itself was a Double Blind Placebo meaning that patients that are receiving the drugs don't know if they are taking the placebo (fake drug with no effect) or the experimental drug. In a double blind study the staff that hand out the drugs and record the changes also don't know what drugs the patients are taking. This type of procedure helps prevents false and bias results in clinical trails. Now little Bob got extremely lucky because the drug worked and cured the cancer. And they all lived happily ever after.