The C word

When cancer cells are born in healthy tissue, your immune cells can very rapidly find them, and then nurture them by producing “growth” signals. Can we stop this? Can we hijack our natural defence systems to help fight cancer?

Paul’s lab makes movies using a translucent organism – the zebrafish – to study interactions between immune cells and cancer cells. This gives us an opportunity to delve into what is happening in real, living tissue. Paul will discuss his lab’s findings with you.

One way cells become cancerous is through increases in the amount or activity of certain proteins in the cell - these are called “oncoproteins”. Normal cells can’t tolerate high levels of oncoproteins, but cancer cells can adapt - and grow faster.
How? Sally’s lab studies neuroblastoma, a deadly childhood cancer. She will share with you how cancer cells can set up “ally” proteins and signals in order to continue surviving, and how we may be able to manipulate these to trigger cancer cell death.

When a cancer first forms in a patient the cells will move from the original tumour to create multiple tumours around the rest of the body. This is the dangerous part of the disease, which is the hardest to treat. Jess makes movies of these cancer cells ‘walking’ around, and they are particularly interested in what happens when a cancer cell meets a normal cell. In this talk she will show you some of these movies and discuss how research such as hers may one day help prevent cancer spread.