Henrietta Lacks: the mother of modern medicine vol. Immortal Cell Line taken from her body

Law and Order did a episode very similar to this story.

I haven't read the book but I know of her story. The history of African Americans and medicine/ biomedical research in this country is a painful one. The Tuskegee experiments come to mind.

I haven't read the book but I know of her story. The history of African Americans and medicine/ biomedical research in this country is a painful one. The Tuskegee experiments come to mind.

Originally Posted by Hyper Cutter

Very, very interesting. Almost hard to believe I never heard of this before and even harder to believe her cell line has been involved with some of the biggest projects of the last century...which leads me to be skeptical of such claims. Still, it is pretty interesting.

Click to expand...

I guess you never taken a biology class then. The HeLa cells, and many other similar cell lines, have been used to constuct hybridomas that are used in various medical research throughout the world. I actually the read the book when it came out and recommend it to everyone. The book has some history, some science, and some touching and humorous moments as well. Rebecca Skloot did a very good job on the book. The sad thing about the whole thing is she never really "contributed" to science; her cells were stolen from her for research purposed, sent out to people, and were then sold to make hundreds of millions. When you read of how her family was treated, you will feel pretty angry with the legal system.
The saddest thing was that her cervical cancer was the result of the HPV she contract from her husband, who slept around with other women.

Originally Posted by Hyper Cutter

Very, very interesting. Almost hard to believe I never heard of this before and even harder to believe her cell line has been involved with some of the biggest projects of the last century...which leads me to be skeptical of such claims. Still, it is pretty interesting.

Click to expand...

I guess you never taken a biology class then. The HeLa cells, and many other similar cell lines, have been used to constuct hybridomas that are used in various medical research throughout the world. I actually the read the book when it came out and recommend it to everyone. The book has some history, some science, and some touching and humorous moments as well. Rebecca Skloot did a very good job on the book. The sad thing about the whole thing is she never really "contributed" to science; her cells were stolen from her for research purposed, sent out to people, and were then sold to make hundreds of millions. When you read of how her family was treated, you will feel pretty angry with the legal system.
The saddest thing was that her cervical cancer was the result of the HPV she contract from her husband, who slept around with other women.

Watching the movie, and it told the basic part of the story, but idk man it just makes them look crazy.

Cliffs.

-Henrietta Lacks get's cancer and dies
-doctor takes cells from her tumor illegally
-doctor notices that cells in the tumor are still alive after several days
- doctor isolates specific living cells from the cancerous tumor
- these cells are "immortal" as the parent cell does not die after division
-doctor multiplies these cells seperates them from the parent cell line and does polio tests on them
-since the cell is (immortal) there is no shortage of testing samples
-doctor creates polio vaccination from her cells
- to this day her cells live on (1951-current times) and multiple vaccinations have come from her carrying the immortal cell trait
-thus doctors don't have to test on dying humans, instead they can use the "immortal cell" as samples