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I am trying to figure out how cells reproduce, so how one cell becomes two.  This type of cell reproduction is called Mitosis and is really important during growth – as babies grow into adults they need lots of new cells.  Also adults need to replace damaged or dead cells with new, healthy cells.  Normally, cell reproduction is carefully controlled so that the two new cells are identical to the mother cell.  The mother cell has to make a copy of all of its DNA (in the picture below is a cell before it goes through mitosis, the DNA is shown in blue).   The cell then has to completely change its shape and become round and symmetrical.   When the cell is symmetrical it then has to organise all its DNA in the middle of the cell.  It does this by building scaffolding to hold the DNA in place.  This scaffolding is called a Mitotic Spindle and is shown in green in the image above.  The mitotic spindle is also symmetrical so that when all the DNA is in the middle of the cell, the spindle can pull the DNA apart into two new cells.  I’ve drawn a cartoon to try and show this.

In cancer, cells reproduce out of control.  They make lots of copies of themselves in the wrong place and at the wrong time and that is why a tumour develops – which is a lump of cells.  In this image: you can see that this cell is not symmetrical any more.  This is a cancer cell trying to go through mitosis.  How do you think this cell will separate its DNA?  What do you think will happen to the new cells then?

What I am trying to understand is how is mitosis different between normal cells and cancer cells.  If we can figure this out then we can make drugs that will only kill the cancer cells and will let healthy cells reproduce as normal.  I use microscopes to film cells that are going through mitosis.  I take away different genes and see what happens to mitosis when that gene is gone.  Humans have 30,000 genes and so this is a big job!  I use a robot to help me look at lots of genes at once, otherwise this would take a VERY long time.  I also use plates that have 384 wells so that I can look at 384 genes in one go.

I get into the lab and put on my lab coat.  The first thing I do is to check on all the cells I am growing.  Are they growing well?  Do they need feeding?  Can I use them for an experiment?  Because I do all my experiments on cells its really important that I look after them well.  It’s a bit like gardening – feed them, prune them (get rid of the dead ones) and make sure they don’t overgrow the space they’re in.

All my days are different – which I like.  Typically, I might put some cells on the microscope and start filming them.  If I take a picture of them every 10 minutes I can watch them grow and go through mitosis. While the microscope is running, I might study some data on my computer.  This means watching the movies and trying to work out what is happening and how things change when I’ve taken a gene away.  Do the cells take longer to go through mitosis?  Are they still dividing symmetrically?  Are cells dying?   When I have an idea what is happening I have to design more experiments to see if I am right.

Often I have to put my results together into a presentation to present to the rest of my team (there are 10 of us in my team).  It can be scary presenting in front of others but its important to do it so that everyone is up to date with results and to make sure that I keep doing the right experiments.

Once or twice a week we have a seminar.  This is where another cancer researcher from a different University, often from a different country, comes and tells us about their work for an hour. Then we discuss the results.  These are usually really fun because you get to hear about a lot of new and exciting experiments.

I also teach students in the lab.  These are students at University who want to get some experience in the lab.  They have their own projects and I teach them how to do experiments and help them understand their results.  This is always a nice part of my job – getting to teach people new things.