Researchers see smiley face in cancer cell

17 Jan 2012, 7:10 am   -   Source: AAP
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(Image and video courtesy of Westmead Millennium Institute for Medical Research)

(Image and video courtesy of Westmead Millennium Institute for Medical Research)

Sydney researchers have been left wondering if a cancer cell was taunting them, after it formed a perfect smiley face under the microscope.

Peering down a microscope day after day, year after year can leave you questioning your sanity, Associate Professor Beric Henderson says.

So when Sydney researchers stared down at the cancer protein they had been studying for 12 years and watched it form a perfect smiley face, it was like a believer glimpsing Jesus in their cereal.

"We have actually never seen anything like it before," Dr Henderson told AAP on Monday.

"People here were getting very excited by the image."

Dr Henderson heads the gene expression laboratory at Westmead Millennium Institute for Medical Research, University of Sydney.

He and his team have been charged with trying to unlock the behaviour of the beta-catenin protein, which causes cancer by moving into the cell nucleus and activating genes.

The chain reaction transforms normal cells into tumour cells.

"That's really the place where the cancer protein does its things.

"If it doesn't go into the nucleus it doesn't cause cancer.

"We are studying how it gets in there to hopefully work out how to stop it doing so."

But playing the staring game with the mysterious gene can be a tedious process, he said.

"It can get very dull and boring. It certainly causes eye strain and some might say some mental health problems as well."

When senior scientist Dr Manisha Sharma made the happy discovery, Dr Henderson said it had the Sydney researchers musing the underlying message.

"There are different ways of looking at it. You could think it's laughing at us, but I like to think it's challenging us."

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