Name______Common Core: HeLa

On January 29, 1951, Henrietta Lacks went to Johns Hopkins Hospital because she felt a lump inside her. Johns Hopkins was her only choice for a hospital, since it was the only one in a close proximity to them that treated black patients. Howard Jones, new doctor, examined Henrietta and the lump in her cervix. It was like nothing he had ever seen before. He cut off a small part of the tumor and sent it to the pathology lab. Soon after, Jones discovered Henrietta had a malignant epidermoid carcinoma of the cervix Stage 1 (cervical cancer). Lacks underwent radiation and X-ray treatments to try to stop the cancer. Though she received treatment and blood transfusions, she died on October 4, 1951, at 12:30 A.M. at the age of thirty-one.

During her radiation treatments for the tumor, a small part of Henrietta's cervix was taken off—a healthy part and a cancerous part—without her permission. The cells from her cervix were given to Dr. George Otto Gey. Dr. Gey discovered that Henrietta's cells did something he'd never seen before: They could be kept alive and multiply. Before Henrietta, human 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. Some cells in Henrietta's cancerous tissue sample behaved differently than others. Gey was able to isolate one specific cell, multiply it, and start a cell line. Gey named the sample "HeLa", after the initial letters of Henrietta Lacks' name, to protect her identity. As the first human cells grown in a lab that were "immortal" (did not die after a few cell divisions), they could then be used for conducting many experiments. This represented an enormous boon to medical and biological research.

By 1954, HeLa 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. 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, drug safety, gene mapping 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.

In her 2010 book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot documents the histories of both the HeLa cell line and the Lacks family. Henrietta's husband, David Lacks, was told little following her death. 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 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.

Millions, if not billions of dollars have been made using Henrietta’s cells. Untold numbers of lives have been saved thanks to discoveries made from studying HeLa. Courts have ruled that once tissue is removed from someone’s body, it no longer belongs to them. To date, the Lacks family lives below the poverty level, and has received no money from any medicine, product, or patent Henrietta’s cells made possible.

1. The cells taken from Henrietta that eventually became the HeLa cell line were clearly special. What properties of these kindsof cells do you KNOW were responsible for their ability to continually divide? Which properties are still a mystery, even to scientists?

2. It is ironic that cells that were originally diseased became a tool for saving lives. Choose ONE of the ways HeLa cells have been used to help people, and discuss how having human cells to experiment on was so important for this line of research.

3. Drug companies spend millions of dollars on research, and in turn make millions of dollars in profits from the medicines that save lives. Do you think people whose cells or genes are found to be valuable should be paid? Support your answer using information provided in the passage.