Detecting

Cancer cells have many similarities to normal cells. This makes it difficult to find and kill them without damaging the healthy cells. However there are some very slight differences in the ways that cancer cells and normal cells work. Scientists are trying to make medicines that will detect the cancer cells in the body using these differences.

The green colour shows the protein these cancer cells are using to move around the body. The cell 'skeleton', called the cytoskeleton, is stained red.

Ian Hart and his team at QMUL have found a difference between normal cells and some cancer cells. Cancer cells make a particular protein which they use to move around the body. The only normal cells to make this protein are skin cells when they mend an injury.

Doctors could locate cancer cells by looking for this protein in cells. They could then kill the cancer cells.

The radioactive chemicals are attracted to the cancer cells and then move to the bladder so they can be expelled.

Stephen Mather and his team at QMUL make different types of cancer specific chemicals and proteins and are labelling them with radioactivity.

Using these radioactive detecting drugs attached to cancer specific proteins, the doctors will be able to pinpoint where the cancers are in patients' bodies. These radioactive detecting drugs have to be designed so they can be expelled from the body.