Leukemia is a disease where some cells in the blood develop the ability to divide much faster and survive much longer than normal. I work on a special type of leukemia, myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), in which a lot of the cells die rather than survive. The cells that do survive in MDS are dysplastic (which means abnormal in appearance), and don’t do their jobs very well. As an example, see the images below. The cell on the left is a neutrophil (a cell type involved in immunity) from a healthy mouse, while the cell on the left is from a mouse with MDS. The purple stain in both neutrophils identifies the nucleus, the part of the cell which contains the DNA. The normal neutrophil’s nucleus has a few bumps (called “lobes”) but is basically a linear structure. The MDS neutrophil’s nucleus is a squiggly mess, and is therefore classified as dysplastic.

One of my projects is to work out how and why the cells die, and how their death can stimulate the remaining cells to divide even faster. My other project is based on genetic mutations which occur in a large number of MDS patients. These mutations are in a specific group of genes, and it’s my job to figure out how they contribute to the disease.

There is no such thing as a typical day at work. Some days will be just reading, discussing and writing, other days will be experimental (and experiments can include mouse work, cell work or molecular work) or data analysis, and most days will be a combination of everything. The best part is getting new data and that leading to new ideas, but all the little steps are required to get to that point. The hard part is working out where my time is best spent.

Science communication is about enabling people who otherwise wouldn’t benefit from scientific research to do so. The spread of AIDS in African communities is a great example of the importance of communicating scientific knowledge – despite all that we have learned about HIV and AIDS through scientific research, the people in these communities still do not understand that HIV is sexually transmitted and how they can prevent themselves from becoming infected. The African AIDS Foundation is an Australian, non-government organisation working to help communities educate themselves on this important issue.