HENRIETTA LACKS

Henrietta Lacks Henrietta Lacks (sometimes mistakely called Henrietta Lakes, Helen Lane or Helen Larson) was a poor, black, uneducated African- American tobacco farmer who was born in 1920 and died on October 4, 1951 from cancer. Without her knowing, the cells from her cancerous tumour were cultured (grown in a laboratory) to create the first known human immortal cell line for medical research. This is now known as the HeLa cell line.

HeLa Cells

Henrietta’s tumour cells Cells from Henrietta's tumor were given to a researcher who "discovered that Henrietta's cells did something they'd never seen before: They could be kept alive and grow." Before this, cells cultured from other cells would only survive for a few days. Scientists spent more time trying to keep the cells alive than performing actual research on the cells, but some cells from Lacks's tumor sample behaved differently from others. One specific cell was able to be isolated and multiplied to start a cell line. The sample was named HeLa after the initial letters of Henrietta Lacks' name. As the first human cells grown in a lab that were "immortal" (they do not die after a few cell divisions), they could be used for conducting many experiments. This represented an enormous boon to medical and biological research.

HeLa cells By 1954, the HeLa strain of cells was being used by Jonas Salk to develop a vaccine for polio. To test Salk's new vaccine, the cells were quickly put into mass production in the first-ever cell production factory.

Cloning of cells In 1955 HeLa cells were the first human cells successfully cloned.

Enormous number of uses for her cells Demand for the HeLa cells quickly grew. Since they were put into mass production, Henrietta's cells have been mailed to scientists around the globe for "research into cancer, AIDS, the effects of radiation and toxic substances, gene mapping, in vitro fertililsation and countless other scientific pursuits". HeLa cells have been used to test human sensitivity to tape, glue, cosmetics, and many other products. Scientists have grown some 20 tons of her cells, and there are almost 11,000 patents involving HeLa cells. The cells have been used in 74,000 studies.

HeLa cells in space Research into the effect space has on cells and tissues was also carried out using HeLa cells. Henrietta’s cells were were on board of the satellite Korabl-Sputnik 2 in They were also on board the first manned space flight in1961

Her family later learnt about these cells In the early 1970s, the family of Henrietta Lacks started getting calls from researchers who wanted blood samples from them to learn the family's genetics (eye colours, hair colours, and genetic connections). The family questioned this, which led to them learning about the removal of Henrietta's cells. Henrietta’s cells had been bought and sold by the billions, yet she remained virtually unknown while her family were too poor to afford health insurance.

A highly recommended read! Recognition then followed. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot is a superb book which documents the histories of both the HeLa cell line and the Lacks family. It tells a riveting story of the collision between ethics, race, and medicine; of scientific discovery and faith healing; and of a daughter consumed with questions about the mother she never knew. It’s a story inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we’re made of. The Immortal Life of Henrietta LacksRebecca Skloot

For their part, members of the Lacks family were kept in the dark about the existence of the tissue line. When its existence was revealed in two articles written in March 1976 by Michael Rogers, one in the Detroit Free Press [28] and one in Rolling Stone, family members were confused about how Henrietta's cells could have been taken without consent and how they could still be alive 25 years after her death.Michael RogersDetroit Free Press [28]Rolling Stone There is now the Henrietta Lacks Foundation strives to provide financial assistance to needy individuals who have made important contributions to scientific research without their knowledge or consent.

Law and Ethics Neither Lacks nor her family gave her physician permission to harvest the cells. At that time, permission was neither required nor customarily sought. The cells were later commercialized. In the 1980s, family medical records were published without family consent. In 1990 in America, the court ruled that a person's discarded tissue and cells are not their property and can be commercialized. In March 2013, German researchers published the DNA code, or genome, of a strain of HeLa cells without permission from the Lacks family. Later, in August 2013, an agreement by the family and the National Institutes of Health was announced that gave the family some control over access to the cells' DNA code and a promise of acknowledgement in scientific papers. In addition, two family members will join a six-member committee which will regulate access to the code.DNAgenomeNational Institutes of Health dna-info_n_ html