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Did you know that, inside most tumours, there are areas with very low oxygen available, or maybe even no oxygen at all? And did you know these areas are very important for the cancer cells becoming more aggressive, harder to kill and easier to spread to others parts of the body?

It is these parts of the tumours that we study in my lab, so we can understand the biology behind these changes and adaptations and, more importantly, how we can spot these cells before they become nasty. I am also interested in how we can make these cells easier to kill with chemo and radio therapy.

One of the cool ways in which we can imitate low oxygen in tumours is by placing the cancer cells we work with is a specialised box with gloves, a bit like the one Homer Simpson uses at the start of the Simpsons intro. But instead of radioactivity, we have a low oxygen gas mix. In one of the photos below you can see me working one of these chambers (as well as in my profile picture).

Our hands and arms can get very sweaty, because the inside of the chamber is kept at 37 degrees, just like our bodies, so the cancer cells don’t just die before we can do our experiments with them. In the photo below you can see the cells in the dish I am holding underneath the small microscope placed inside the chamber.