A Life After Death: The Bequest of Henrietta Lacks

A Life after Death: The Bequest of Henrietta Lacks

By Mr Ghaz, January 11, 2010

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A Life after Death: The Bequest of Henrietta Lacks

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One day in February 1951, a black American woman named Henrietta Lacks was examined by doctors at the Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore. Cells from a suspicious purplish spot on her cervix were analyzed and identified as cancerous. They multiplied so quickly that, despite treatment, Mrs. Lacks died eight months later, at the age of 31.

Today, however, her cells are still alive and are being used to help combat a wide variety of diseases all over the world.

Test Tube Success

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The resident gynecologist at the hospital was the first to take an interest in Henrietta Lacks. Intrigued by the extraordinary rate at which her cells multiplied, he sent sample of them to Dr. George Gey, a friend and colleague at Johns Hopkins University. A distinguished cell biologist, Gey was particularly interested in the science of tissue culture; cells cultivated in a special medium in the laboratory can be studied or used to grow viruses so that vaccine can be tested against them.

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Tissue culture is usually a difficult task, since few cells grow easily once they are removed from the body. In this case, however, the cancer cells in the culture were so vigorous that they continue to reproduce themselves to this day.

Rapid Growth

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Called HeLa Cells – a combination of the last two letters of Henrietta and Lacks – the tumor cells have been used in numerous medical experiments. One of the earliest was in the culture of polio viruses, which, for the first time, could be grown rapidly in a laboratory instead of slowly in animals. This advance paved the way for development of a polio vaccine. The HeLa cells have also proved invaluable in research on bodily protein synthesis and genetic engineering.

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Today there is not a cancer-research laboratory of vaccine-promotion center in the world that does not owe something to the tenacious longevity of HeLa cells. In addition, scientists hope that the well-traveled cells of Henrietta Lacks might one day lead to a cure for cancer.