Henrietta Lacks Research Papers

Henrietta Lacks, an African American, was born August 1, 1920. When her mother died her father gave her to her grandfather who raised her and her cousin David Lacks. In 1935 she was fourteen years old and had her first son, Lawrence, four years later she had her daughter Elsie. She married David Lacks, her first cousin in 1941. Later, she moved to Maryland where she had three more kids. January 29, 1951, Henrietta was diagnosed with a epidermoid carcinoma of the cervix. Henrietta died of uremic poisoning and her cancer had spread throughout all her body. She died October 4, 1951. (Henrietta Lacks Biography (1920-1951)). While she had cancer she was treated with radiation. While she was in radiation treatment two samples of her cervix were removed, without her permission, one that was healthy and a cancerous one. During this time permission was not required nor customarily sought. These cells from the cervix are what make Henrietta Lacks a contributor to modern research. Those cells are known as the HeLa cell line. This cell line is now being commonly used in biomedical research (Moorhead).

This was something new to them and it hadn’t been seen before. The reason for being a discovery is that before the cells that had been cultured from other cells would only survive for a few days. However, with Henrietta’s cells they were able to isolate one specific cell, multiply it and start the HeLa cell line (Henrietta Lacks Biography (1920–1951)). They named them HeLa after her first two letters of her first name and the first two letters of her last name. These cells were the first human cells grown in a lab, and were used to conduct many experiments. These cells have been the oldest and most commonly used human cell line, and it is also remarkably durable and prolific