Five reasons Henrietta Lacks is the most important woman in medical history

In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, a poor woman with a middle-school education, made one of the greatest medical contributions ever. Her cells, taken from a cervical-cancer biopsy, became the first immortal human cell line—the cells reproduce infinitely in a lab. Although other immortal lines have since been established, Lacks’s “HeLa” cells are the standard in labs around the world. Together they outweigh 100 Empire State Buildings and could circle the equator three times. This month, PopSci contributor Rebecca Skloot’s book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, tells the story behind the woman who revolutionized modern medicine. Here, five reasons we should all thank Henrietta Lacks.

1. Before HeLa cells, scientists spent more time trying to keep cells alive than performing actual research on the cells. An endless supply of HeLa cells freed up time for discovery.

2. In 1952, the worst year of the polio epidemic, HeLa cells were used to test the vaccine that protected millions.

3. Some cells in Lacks’s tissue sample behaved differently than others. Scientists learned to isolate one specific cell, multiply it, and start a cell line. Isolating one cell and keeping it alive is the basic technique for cloning and in-vitro fertilization.

4. A scientist accidentally poured a chemical on a HeLa cell that spread out its tangled chromosomes. Later on, scientists used this technique to determine that humans have 46 chromosomes—23 pairs—not 48, which provided the basis for making several types of genetic diagnoses.

5. It was discovered that Lacks’s cancerous cells used an enzyme called telomerase to repair their DNA, allowing them, and other types of cancer cells, to function when normal cells would have died. Anti-cancer drugs that work against this enzyme are currently in early clinical trials.

What I don’t see here is that she also made a contribution to the field of medical ethics. She never consented to have her cells used in medical research. Even though her husband was asked verbally if it was okay to use her cells in research, he never gave informed consent, nor signed anything. Furthermore, by the time he was asked (at the time of her death), her cells had already been used to establish a cell line. There is debate about whether her cells were taken and used in an ethical manner; it is probable that under today’s standards, the use of her cells would be considered unethical (and therefore unallowable). My current workplace oversees an IRB (institutional review board), which examines the ethics of proposed human research projects... ethics is a major consideration in research these days.

I’ve never used HeLa cells myself, but certainly, the knowledge gained from researchers using her cells was crucial to my being able to use many other cell lines—human, mouse, rat, guinea pig, hamster, and African green monkey—in my research.

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	Gods Graves Glyphs	Thanks James C. Bennett. Not only that... every sample used to study this cancer turns out to have come from her. Even samples in other countries which were supposedly from other people turned out to have been taken over by the Lacks cells. This is one bad sample. A scientist accidentally poured a chemical on a HeLa cell that spread out its tangled chromosomes. Later on, scientists used this technique to determine that humans have 46 chromosomes -- 23 pairs -- not 48, which provided the basis for making several types of genetic diagnoses. Matt Ridley pointed this out in his book "Genome" -- and the interesting part of this story is, because four living primates (gibbons, orangutans, gorillas, and chimps) have 24 pairs, it was wishful thinking that humans do also. The discoverer of the 23 pairs thought he had a freak, but in looking back, he even found photos in textbooks clearly showing 23 pairs, but captioned as 24 pairs. :') "For thirty years, nobody disputed this 'fact'. One group of scientists abandoned their experiments on human liver cells because they could only find twenty-three pairs of chromosomes in each cell. Another researcher invented a method of separating the chromosomes, but still he thought he saw twenty-four pairs. It was not until 1955, when an Indonesian named Joe-Hin Tjio travelled from Spain to Sweden to work with Albert Levan, that the truth dawned. Tjio and Levan, using better techniques, plainly saw twenty-three pairs. They even went back and counted twenty-three pairs in photographs in books where the caption stated that there were twenty-four pairs. There are none so blind as do not wish to see." (Matt Ridley, *Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters, p 23-24) The correct number of chromosomes could have been discerned, one would think, during the almost 35 years involved in the events above. The most daunting realization is that the double heliacal form of DNA was discerned in 1953, two years before* this chromosome count was corrected. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
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Some of the research that has come from HeLa cells.

These cells are so potent that they have invaded and contaminated hundreds of labs around the world.

Also, a comment from Wired mentioned that her cells are no longer considered human. Any comments from those involved in research?

This missed the creepiest part of the story - HeLa cells aren’t even human! They exist due to a lateral gene transfer from HPV to humans and have been classified as a distinct species.

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