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Henrietta Lacks - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Henrietta Lacks (August 18, 1920 – October 4, 1951) was an African American woman who was the unwitting source of cells from her cancerous tumor, which were cultured by George Otto Gey to create an immortal cell line for medical research. This is now known as the HeLa cell line.

Before Henrietta, the cells would only survive for a few days. The cells from Henrietta’s tumor were given to researcher George Gey, who “discovered that [Henrietta’s] cells did something they’d never seen before: They could be kept alive and grow.” This represented an enormous boon to medical and biological research. The cells were quickly put into mass production in the first-ever cell production factory.

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, 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.

There are almost 11,000 patents involving HeLa cells.

(via kl0vis-deactivated20111012)