Glossary
BioScience.com.pk try the best to avoid the use of medical terms that could make it more difficult to understand the information on this website. Still, there are a number of terms that can't be avoided and that are useful to know because they are so often used by the doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals with whom you might speak. The list below includes the terms used on BioScience.com.pk for which we have provided definitions.
Term | Definition |
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Polymer | A large molecule consisting of multiple identical or similar chemical units that are linked together |
Polymorphic | Gene having many different possible forms (alleles) |
Polymorphism | Inherited person-to-person variation in the genetic code sequence within a specified DNA segment or gene |
Polymyalgia Rheumatica | A disease that causes pain and weakness in the neck, shoulder muscles and pelvis, and morning stiffness. It commonly affects people over 50 years of age, especially women. |
Polyp | |
Posterior | At or toward the back |
Precursor | 1. one that comes before or gives rise to another |
Presumptive | Based on reasonable evidence or assumption; based on early, preliminary or partial results |
Prevalence | The number of people with a particular disease at any given time in a population |
Preventive Medicine | That branch of medicine concerned primarily with the prevention of disease |
Prion Protein | An infectious agent (not bacteria or virus) that is an irregular form of a normal protein; prion proteins cause a variety of infections, including Mad Cow Disease and Creutzfeld-Jacob disease. Prion proteins are thought to induce normal brain proteins to assume an irregular shape, rendering them dysfunctional. |
Prognosis | 1) prediction about the course or outcome of a disease or illness |
Prophylaxis | (adj. Prophylactic) |
Prostatitis | inflammation of the prostate |
Protein |