Independent Variable: The amount of lipopolysaccharide given to elderly.
Dependent Variable: The amount of inflammotin found in test subjects blood.
Experimental Design
Group
There will be four groups in the experiment. The control group will consist of patients who will not receive any doses of lipopolysaccharide. The other groups will receive distributed doses such as 10mg, 7mg, 3mg,and 1mg dose of lipopolysaccharide. We decided upon these numbers arbitrarily based on the information we were given at the beginning of the experiment. It stated that a 10mg dose of the lipopolysaccharide was going to be the largest amount used to change the amount of inflammotin proteins in the patients; so we decided to distribute lower doses to see if the effects of the medication are relative to proportion.
Number of subjects per group
Each group will consist of 20 healthy, elderly adults with a minimum age of 60 years old, split evenly between genders. Therefore we will have a total of 80 subjects, 40 being male, and 40 being female. Consequently, there will be 10 males and 10 females that will be getting the same dose of either 10,7, or 3 mg doses of the lipopolysaccharide in each group.
Details about our experimental design
Take blood samples of all subjects prior to experiments to determine a baseline and be to be sure the subject will react to the drug.
We will give each group their appropriate dose, once a day for 30 days. At the end of the 30 days, we will compare the results with the baseline tests of each subject.
Subject Selection
Subject Selection
Our subjects are distinguished based on age and health.
Each group will be split in gender.
Subjects will be gathered from multiple Senior Homes at random.
The minimum age will be 60 years old. They will be of good health determined by a doctor.
Sources of Error and Bias
(What are some of the potential sources of error or biases that could affect your results and how would you control for them?)
Results of patients with previous conditions, or who are much more active, may effect the inflammatory data possibly causing a skew to the results, however, when viewing the results of the experiment these test subjects data points should appear as outliers and not be accounted in the mean. Another possible source of error may be due to contamination or human error. It would be necessary to keep a clean, controlled environment during the entire extent of the experiment as well as take accurate and precise measurements. To limit bias, our group decided to make our experiment double blind. Meaning neither the subjects or the scientist know which treatment was given. Instead the treatments are labeled by number or color and not revealed until after the results are taken (placebos/sugar pills are given for the control group).
BME 100 Fall 2013
