Question: Hi, What sort of experimental work is done to try and cure leukaemia?

Wow, big question! I do experiments that basically fall into three categories. One is changing the genes in mice (in very specific ways) and examining the effect that this has one them. This can also include treating the mice with drugs to see whether the drugs change the effect of the gene manipulation. The second type of experiment involves cell lines, which are cells that grow in incubators in the lab. We basically do the same types of things to the cells as to the mice (ie change their genes and treat them with drugs), but the cells are easier and cheaper to manipulate, but a less useful model than the mice. The third type of experiment is molecular. This is where we extract DNA or RNA or protein and perform tests on these molecules to determine things like which genes are on or off, or which proteins bind to each other, or whether the DNA is mutated. These are the nitty-gritty experiments, about as small-scale as we go, and we use the results of these to inform the experiments that we conduct on cell lines and mice. There are other types of experiments that other leukemia researchers do – for example, many researchers use material from real leukemia patients to conduct experiments, which I don’t do – and we try to put it all together to understand what’s really happening!