She is buried in an unmarked grave at Clover near her mother’s tombstone. Like many of her unknown relatives she did not have a marker to indicate her final resting spot. Asides from her family, her identity is known to the world as the code name HeLa. Her name was Henrietta Lacks. Her cells were taken without consent, and are the first immortal human cells grown in culture.
Built in 1880, John Hopkins was one of the top hospitals in America dedicated towards the sick and poor. The Jim Crow era, a racial caste system segregating the Caucasians from the African Americans between 1877 and the mid 1960s was in place (http://www.ferris.edu/Jimcrow/what.htm). It was during this time when Henrietta arrived at John Hopkins regarding her health issue.
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One of the most prominent contributions of HeLa cells was the development of polio vaccine. Polio is an infectious disease spread from direct human-to-human contact which attacks the central nervous system causing paralysis (http://www.cdc.gov/polio/about/index.htm). Around 1951, the world had witnessed a dangerous period of polio epidemic. In 1952, Dr. Jonas Salk at the University of Pittsburgh had developed the first polio vaccine, but could not administer it to children without testing to prove that it was safe. So the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (NFIP), charity created by Franklin D. Roosevelt, organized the largest filed trial for the polio vaccine. During the trial Salk inoculated over 2 million children, whose blood would be tested for antibody production, however analyzing the results required monkey cells which were really expensive. So NFIP contacted Dr. Gey and other researches to obtain cell cultures which could be produced on mass scale and cheaper compared to monkey cells. This was the perfect opportunity for Gey to put the HeLa cells to work. HeLa cells could be grown easily and cultured in the lab. The HeLa cells were found to be more susceptible to the virus than normal cells through the work of Gey, William Scherer and other researchers at the University of Minnesota. Hearing this NFIP contracted Scherer for developing a HeLa distribution centre at the Tuskegee Institute in …show more content…
It brought about the standardization of the field which is presently used to culture cells. The standardization came into place through the initiation of three important steps. HeLa cells were grown in large quantities at the Tuskegee Institute. Harry Eagle, a researcher at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) used HeLa cells for the production of the first standardized culture medium which could be distributed ready to use (Skloot, pg 99). Gey along with some other researchers used HeLa cells in determining the ideal glassware in providing a less toxic environment for the cells. Following the introduction of these events, researchers around the world could work with the same cells, grown in the same media, using the same equipment. This eventually led the researchers to use the first-ever human cell clones. HeLa cells were also used by researchers to develop freezing techniques. This allowed for the cells to be safely stored and shipped to different laboratories around the world. Freezing also allowed the researchers to “pause” cells at various stages during an experiment and analyze them. In doing so they believed they could observe the actual moment a normal cell transformed to a malignant one, a process they termed spontaneous transformation (Skloot, pg
Dr. George Otto Gey Rebecca Skloot writes in The Life of Henrietta Lacks, part two “Death” how she was able to contact the family and describes the medical research on HeLa cells. Rebecca Skloot has a hard time getting a hold of the family since trust is a big issue. To illustrate, since Henrietta Lacks cell are legendary in the medical and science community the Lacks family been bombarded with people trying to get information about Henrietta. Because of this, Rebecca, had to first gain the trust of the family before she will be able to talk to the family. Scientist and doctor used Henrietta’s cells on animals and people to study the effects of the cancer cells and gain new knowledge.
The Case of Henrietta Lacks In January of 1951, a 30 year old African American, married mother of five visited Johns Hopkins Hospital for vaginal bleeding, her name was Henrietta Lacks. At the time, Johns Hopkins was the only hospital in the area that would treat African American patients. During a pelvic examination, Dr. Howard W. Jones performed a biopsy of a mass located on Mrs. Lacks' cervix. Laboratory test results came back positive for terminal cervical cancer and Mrs. Lacks began treatment.
Henrietta Lacks Timeline 1920’s August 5 1920-Henrietta Lacks is born in Roanoke, Virginia with the name Loretta Pleasant 1924-Henrietta’s mother Eliza Lacks Pleasant dies giving birth Henrietta went to go live with her grandfather, Tommy Lacks and her cousins Joe and Day on a tobacco farm 1930’s 1934-Henrietta becomes pregnant with her cousin Day’s child Lawrence and later a daughter Elsie who was mentally challenged 1940’s 1940 -Fred buys a bus ticket to travel up north to join his other cousins working at a steel mill outside of baltimore called turner station April 20 1941-Henrietta and Day get married December 1941-Japan bombs pearl Harbor which bring more demand from Turner Station Henrietta cousin Fred returns successfully from
These cells (nicknamed HeLa to protect Henriettas identity) reproduced infinitely like no other. George Gey put HeLa in culture which is cells that are removed from a plant or animal then are put into an artificial environment that is sterile warm and fed with the utmost of vigilance with medium(Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. ). Medium what the cells are fed with were made up of multiple things, because scientists back then used all kinds of things for medium but George Gey used chicken blood, special salts and placenta(Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. ).
One came from her tumor, and one came from healthy cervical tissue. These tissues were given to Dr. George Gey, who then began observing and testing on her cells. These cells began growing and growing, and millions of HeLa cells were provided to labs and doctors around the nation. Many studies were conducted and many breakthroughs were made with the use of these cells. In the novel, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”, it says, “Within days they found that HeLa was, in fact, more susceptible to the virus than any cultured cells had ever been.
, Gey had Mary Kubicek, his lab assistant, take further HeLa samples while Henrietta’s body was at Johns Hopkins’ autopsy facility. The roller-tube technique was the method used to culture the cells obtained from the samples the Kubicek collected. Gey was able to start a cell line from Lacks’s sample by isolating one specific cell and repeatedly dividing it, meaning that the same cell could thebe used or conducting many experiments. They became known as HeLa cells, because Gey’s standard method for labeling samples was to use the first two letters of the patient’s first and last
It was the first human cells to successfully be cloned. After that, HeLa cells have been used in various research. Some examples of research are cancer, AIDS, radiation effects, toxic substances effects, gene mapping, and many other scientific research. Today HeLa cells are still used for these researches, but mostly cancer research. In 2011, HeLa cells were used in tests of hepathine dyes, and other and other
During the twentieth century, the word had known many unprecedented inventions and discoveries that had radically shaped our way of life. The field of discovery that touched human’s life the most, was the medical field. One of the most important achievements in science that opened the doors to many other scientific discoveries was the seccefull culture of the first human cells in laboratory. Those cells were named HeLa. HeLa cells were taken from the cervical of a black woman in Charles Hopkins hospital in Baltimore, where she went to trait cancer.
Although she relocated in her twenties to the north she still experienced racial disparity specifically through her medical experience. John Hopkins was a hospital with a unique mission, in retrospect to the time in which it was founded, this mission is simply put by a scholarly article on the subject, “to provide care to the sick and indigent ‘without regard to sex, age, or color’”. With the socio economic status and race of Henrietta this hospital was one of the least segregated and most willing to provide car for Henrietta and people like her. Despite this seemingly positive improvement in her story, what went on in the hospital and specifically what took place with the story of Henrietta lacks was not right or ethical. Henrietta and many others were in fact segregated into color wards, although the segregation took place she received the standard care of that time.
Meanwhile Mr. Gey was giving away HeLa cells like candy to anyone who asked scientist or
First of all, Henrietta was an African American woman at the time when there was still inequality and segregation towards African Americans. This was really evident when she went in for her checkups at Hopkins and how she was never asked for her consent with her cell tissue. Also, the medical treatments at that time were not very safe or effective. An example would be when they used radium to try and treat her cervical cancer. Little did they know that radium destroys any cells it touches and it can also cause cancer.
But that’s not what happened. They created the first immortal human-cell line. From that point on, HeLa cells were in high demand.
This made the rest of the scientific world realized they'd just made a gigantic breakthrough in medical technology. Up until this time, scientists were unable to grow human cells in the culture of a Petri dish, but Henrietta’s cells multiplied at a feverish pace. Furthermore, increasing the amount of deadly cancer in her body. Henrietta’s cells also continued to grow and multiply outside her body in laboratory conditions.. Henrietta died at the age of 31, leaving behind a husband and five young children.
Lacks health was on the decline and on August 8, 1951, she was admitted to John Hopkins. Within 2 months, the cancer tumors consumed her body and she died. Upon her death, more samples were removed from her body. These samples were freely shipped to other researchers and scientist around the world so that they could be applied to experiments ranging from cancer treatment to a cure for infectious diseases. As research throughout the world continued using the HeLa cells, Lacks identity as the woman behind them was little known.
30year old Henrietta Lacks underwent radiation treatment for cervical cancer at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore In 1951. During her treatment, George Gey the surgeon who performed the procedure removed pieces of her cervix without her knowledge and sent them to a lab. Her cells were used to develop the polio vaccine, used in the first space missions to see what would happen to human cells in zero gravity. Henrietta’s cells were the first human cells ever cloned, some of the first genes ever mapped. They have been used to create some of our most important cancer