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Have you ever wondered why and how we get cancer? I did, and I found out that there is actually a lot more we need to learn before we find a cure. My PhD research looks at understanding our bodies natural defence against cancer – senescence.

All living things are made up of cells, the building blocks of life. Healthy cells will copy and divide over time to allow for growth, development and repair of our tissues and organs. The activity of the cells is controlled by our genetic code written into our DNA. This code is the instructions to create the proteins that make up the cells. Sometimes, the DNA in our cells can become damaged, for example by too much sun exposure, and change the instructions so that a faulty protein will be made. This faulty protein may either be permanently ‘switched on’ or ‘switched off.’ If a protein that usually make the cells divide is permanently switched on, then the cells will keep dividing even when they don’t need to be, leading to a a lump of cells, known as tumour. The same thing would happen if a protein that usually causes the cells to stop dividing, is permanently switched off.

However, our cells are a little cleverer than this. Often, the cells will realised before it’s too late that something has gone wrong and put the brakes on. This brake is called senescence. Senescence is the of the state of the cell when it is no longer able to divide, but it is still alive and has some activities. A senescent cell can still react to its environment, by making all of the cells around it senescent too. This can stop a tumour from forming. So, we think that it must be when the DNA gets even more damaged during senescence, that the cells wake up and start dividing like crazy to form a tumour.

Turns out, there isn’t actually much known about how the cells actually go into senescence and what makes them come out it and turn into cancer cells. In biology, if you want to know want to know what a protein does in a cell, the best way to find out is to take it away from the cell and see how the cell reacts. So, I used thousands of chemicals called siRNA which can delete proteins from senescent cell and used an automated microscope to see if getting rid of the proteins made the senescent cells start dividing again. If they did start dividing, then it means that that protein is important for the cells to stay senescent. I am now doing experiments with these important proteins to work out how they cause senescence. If we can work this out, maybe we could use the protein in a drug that can keep potential cancer cells senescent.

This is the automated microscope that takes all the pictures for me and can count all the cells too!

I usually plan my experiments in advance so when I come into the lab in the morning, I check my calendar which tells me what I am going to do today. In the morning, I generally tend to do ‘bench work.’ This is where I can be extracting DNA from bacteria or RNA or protein from human cells. I might also be staining cells so that we can see them under the microscope and identify which proteins they express. Sometime we have seminars at around lunch time where a scientist from different parts of the country or even from around the world come and talk to us about their research. In the afternoon, I usually do cell culture. Taking care of cells can be like taking care of a baby; I have to feed them, change them, keep them warm, put them to sleep, freeze them, give them antibiotics… most importantly though, manipulating them so I can get answers to the all important research questions. I tend to finish the day by making notes of what I’ve done so that I don’t forget!

Here are picture of my cells. Senescent cells turn blue when you add a particular chemical to them.

This is Lenny. He helps me when I have a lot a plates with 96 wells to work with.