These cancer doctors are turning tumor cells into artwork

Roswell Park Cancer Institute

Researchers have found a way to turn an ugly disease into beautiful artwork. 

Scientists at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, the world's oldest cancer research center, are injecting fluorescent jellyfish proteins into cancer cells and tumors, and the results have created images so stunning that they're giving others the chance to see them.

While the microphotography is beautiful, it also serves a purpose: the fluorescent cells help Drs. Heinz Baumann and Kenneth Gross color-code cancer cells and track how they behave over time.

Here's how it works.

The method of injecting jellyfish proteins into cells first came about in the early 1990s at Harvard. Harvard researchers originally used the fluorescent proteins to track neurons in the brain.

Initially, only one color of the protein — green — existed. Scientists later developed a larger palette of colors, including red, blue, and yellow.

The technology was later adapted so it could be injected into a variety of cells, which Baumann and Gross began using in experiments at Roswell between 2012 and 2013.