Watch This Video of Cancer Destroying Bone Tissue

The green represents bone tissue, while the red blobs are cancer. Notice how towards the end of the video the red cells have chewed their way into pockets of green. All images and video supplied.

For the longest time doctors could only speculate about why leukemia patients suffered such uncomfortable pain in their bones and joints. Now, thanks to a new imaging technique pioneered by researchers at London's Imperial College and Parkville's Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, doctors can now see what's happening in real time. That is, leukemia cancer cells are destroying the bones they invade.

Leukemia is a cancer of the blood and is the single most common cancer in children, and is highly resistant to chemotherapy. Again, doctors didn't really understand why, which is another mystery that's also been solved by this imaging technique.

To get the low-down on how it works, and where this technology will take medicine next, we got on the phone with immunologist Dr Edwin Hawkin, the head of the Australian research team.

VICE: Hi Edwin, this video is pretty creepy. Is that the reaction you had when you first watched it?
Edwin Hawkin: You're right about getting that creepy feeling. It's the same feeling I got when I first saw it. I just kept wondering is this really true? Is this what's happening inside the body? It's terrifying to think.

So how does this technology work?
You're looking at thousands of images of piece of skull stitched together to create one image. We genetically inserted a piece of code modified from a fluorescent jellyfish—people have been using that for many years, it won a Nobel Prize—to colour the cells we wanted to look at. We also injected antibodies that bound to the cells we wanted to look at, tagging them with a fluorescent label as well. Then, when the bone cells and cancer cells were coloured differently, we hunched over a microscope for nine hours at a time, collecting data every three minutes. It took an insane amount of time.

Can you explain why this technique, and its findings, are such a big deal?
Because during chemotherapy for leukemia, everybody used to think there was this special area, like a bomb shelter or a bunker, where the cancer cells would hide. But we can see that's not true. Instead, the cells ramp up and start to move faster, migrating around the body, effectively running away to evade the chemotherapy.

And what can you tell me about the bone pain that patients experience?
Well it's always been reported that leukemia patients have really bad bone pain, and nobody has ever really known why. We suspected it was because there were so many cells dividing in patient's bones that they were almost bursting at the seams, but that's actually not true. People have bone pain because their bones are getting stripped away, killed, and remodelled.

Are the cancer cells stripping the bone on purpose?
No, we don't think so. Cancers aren't smart: that's a big misconception. People seem to think cancers know what they're doing—like a virus. A virus is always evolving and trying to keep the host cell alive, but cancer doesn't do that. We suspect that the bone stripping is happening because there are so many cells dividing and producing waste products that the bone is destroyed as a side effect.

So how are these findings going to help us eventually cure cancer?
We've learned that cancer cells are running away—very quickly—from chemotherapy, so we're going to block the proteins they use to get around the body. Because we can now get images of the cancer cells running away, we can now administer a drug and in real time watch the cells respond. We've found a few drugs that really are stopping the cells in their tracks. You can literally watch it as you inject the new treatment: you can see the cells go from rapidly moving around to freezing. It's like they're stuck in mud.

Is that the development you're most excited about?
I'm most excited that we have eliminated the need to find these safe houses completely. They don't exist, so we don't have to worry about them anymore. Instead, we know exactly what we do need to focus on and that for me is the biggest step.