Painting created using lab pipette celebrates cancer research victories

A painting created using a lab pipette that celebrates pioneering cancer research has been unveiled.

The unique artwork, made up of 50,000 tiny dots of paint, was created by street artist James Cochran.

He is best known for his David Bowie mural in Brixton, south London.

Mr Cochran, also called Jimmy C, spent 250 painstaking hours on his latest creation using 1cm droplets of paint from a lab pipette.

The artist, who previously suffered from a form of skin cancer, took his inspiration from an image of a patient’s immune system responding to a tumour that was taken by scientists at the The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR).

Mr Cochran said: “I’m used to using cans of spray paint in my art, so swapping that for a lab pipette was quite challenging - but also very rewarding. 

"The process of slowly building up the painting dot by dot and the inspiration for the piece gave me a better understanding of the challenges involved in finishing cancer and the inventiveness needed by scientists to do that. 

"I’ve had a number of treatments for a type of skin cancer called a basal cell carcinoma and I’ve lost loved ones to the disease, so this commission was personal to me."

The artwork, called Cell Division, is in a pointillism style, and will be displayed permanently in the ICR’s Centre for Cancer Drug Discovery, in London.

Professor Sir Mel Greaves, Founding Director of Cancer Evolution in the Centre for Cancer Drug Discovery, said: “By using a lab pipette as his brush and basing the painting on the ICR’s research into cancer evolution, James's piece does a wonderful job of capturing the blend of creativity and rigorous science that our researchers use every day to outsmart cancer. 

“That said, during the coronavirus crisis our research has been on hold but of course, cancer has not. We have lost vital time in our research to defeat cancer and need support today to help us make up for lost time in defeating this disease.”