A breakthrough in imaging techniques could enable scientists to watch the moment that cancer first strikes, holding out the prospect of radical new treatments. In a world first, researchers at Dundee University managed to film healthy, live cells within an embryo dividing and redividing after developing a new way of using a powerful microscope.

{mosimage}The film shows the birth of neurons – which form the brain and nervous system – as cells in a chicken’s egg divide into two, a nerve cell and a “mother cell” that goes on to divide again. This is the first time this stem cell pattern of division has been witnessed in real time. Stem cells can form any kind of cell in the body and it is thought that cancers may occur when those in body tissue make some kind of “mistake”.

The team now plans to artificially induce a cell to become cancerous so they can watch what happens inside when a cancer is born.

This process is poorly understood at present and actually seeing what occurs could lead to a way of preventing it. In almost all cancers, stopping them from spreading renders them relatively harmless.

Cancer specialists described the film as excellent work. One expert expressed the hope that a film of a healthy cell turning into a cancerous one could shed light on the “critical thing” – the trigger for the disease in a cell.

One of the lead researchers, Dr Jason Swedlow, of Dundee University’s College of Life Sciences, said watching the film of nerve cell division for the first time was a “eureka moment”.

“We called the first really good film, Totally Rocking Movie’. It’s one of those amazing moments – you get those once every ten years or so. It’s an amazing thing to be able to watch this process,” he said.

Dr Swedlow, along with colleagues Dr Kate Storey and Arwen Wilcock, who published a paper in the journal Development this month, is now looking to use genetic techniques to “perturb” a cell so it becomes cancerous and try to film what happens.

“If we can learn a little bit about when things go wrong and what makes them go wrong – if you have a model of how these events happen – then you have some ability to start understanding how it happens in the first place and what to do to prevent it happening,” he said.

“That would be an important contribution.”

Scientists have been able to see ordinary cancer cells dividing, but only a long way into the disease’s formation. The Dundee researchers hope to film the point the disease begins.

Patients will be removed from “hidden” waiting lists and given target times for treatment within weeks, under changes the SNP is due to announce today.

An innovative scheme to create a “Circle of support” to monitor high-risk sex offenders on release from prison looks likely to be introduced in Scotland. Circles of support were developed in Canada in the 1990s by the Mennonite Church to try to prevent reoffending by particularly high-risk sex criminals.