Question: When you said you dissect bones does that mean you research the STEM cells

Emma Bull answered on 27 Feb 2026:

Hi!

I don’t actually look at stem cells currently, but I might do in the future!

Currently, I look at the RNA in bones. You might not have heard of RNA before… if we can think about DNA as the full set of instructions within our cells, then RNA is like one single step within those instructions. If you’re building a Lego model, then the blue instruction booklet that comes in the box is like the DNA. The instruction booklet contains maybe 100 different pages and 200 individual steps. RNA is like cutting one single step out. It is a very specific instruction about how to make one single part of a cell. Nearly every single cell in our bodies has the exact same DNA, containing all the instructions needed to make a whole organism. That means our eye cells contain all the instructions needed to make functional eyes, but also the instructions for how to make hair, skin, bones, lungs, teeth and more…. Each type of cell needs different parts of our DNA, and so turning DNA into RNA is a way that the different cell types can select which instructions need to be followed and which ones can be ignored.

I compare the RNA between healthy bone and bone cancer, and look at the RNAs that we find switched on in cancer but not in healthy bone. This gives us clues on how the cancer has formed and is developing, and how we might be able to stop cancer developing.