Bathroom mould may hold key to finding cancer cure

SCIENTISTS in North Wales hope simple mould growing on bread or on bathroom grouting may help in vital research into cancer.

Experts at University of Wales’ school of biological sciences in Bangor, funded by North West Cancer Research, are growing the fungi rather than using human cells for their work.

They hope it will lead to a breakthrough in understanding, treating and even preventing the disease.

Leading researcher Sue Assinder said: “The experiments you want to do are not always easy to do in human cells. They are difficult to grow and sometimes there are ethical considerations.”

Much of the work at Bangor has been inspired by Sir Paul Nurse who last year won a Nobel prize for his work on cell division on yeast fungi. “He discovered fundamental controls operating in cells actually apply whether we are looking at the fungi cell, human cell or even an elephant cell,” said Dr Assinder, who will take over as the school’s head in the summer. “The controls apply across all organisms. That was a very important finding because it now means we can look in what we call model systems -simple micro-organisms, rather than try to do the experiments with humans. “The particular green fungus I work with is very similar to the sort of mould you find on bread or grouting. It is very easy to work with and in lab conditions only takes a couple of days to grow on plates. It doesn’t answer back and we know the kind of discoveries we can make in this system will ultimately help us to understand cancers in humans.”

She said: “Because it is an organism adapted to grow in the lab we know all about the strain we are working with. Once they grow we study them through a state-of-the art microscope which allows us to look in 3 D at the structure of the cells and take moving images, kind of movies, from it.”

Meanwhile a colleague, Dr Ramsay McFarlane, is doing similar experiments with yeast, growing and baking samples.

“The whole cancer field is expanding in the department,” said Dr Assinder, who has been at the university for 17 years.

Now Dr Assinder, who is also education officer with the British Mycological Society, has, with Edinburgh schoolteacher Gordon Rutter produced a fun booklet called How the Mushroom Got its Spots. “It is an expansion of my work into education and basically you could say it is an explainers guide to fungi and is aimed at non-experts who want to tell children more about the fascinating world of mushrooms, toadstools, and moulds.

“One of the great things about fungi is they can be used to illustrate a whole range of biological principles. “For instance without fungi it would be much harder to make chocolate or coffee and fungi are crucial for decomposing dead plant material in our woodlands, helping to keep trees healthy.

“It is also a way of educating children about the dangers of poisonous fungi in what we hope is a straightforward and sensible way.”