The Incredible Story of Henrietta Lacks

This is the strangest, saddest, incredible, and most ethically troubling story all rolled-up in one that I've read over the past several months.

Henrietta Lacks has profoundly impacted your life (yes you) in ways that most of us don't even know.

From Culture Dish, a blog by the author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks...

In 1951, doctors took a small tissue sample from an African American woman named Henrietta Lacks without her knowledge or consent. A scientist put that sample into a test tube, and though Henrietta died a few months later, her cells -- known worldwide as HeLa -- are still alive today.

They became the first immortal human cell line ever grown in culture and one of the most important tools in medicine: They were used to test the polio vaccine and sent up in early space missions to see what would happen to human cells in zero gravity. Research on HeLa helped uncover the secrets of cancer, viruses, and the affects of the atom bomb; it helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, stem cell research and gene mapping. Today, HeLa is still bought and sold by the billions and is the most widely used cell line in labs worldwide.

Henrietta's cells did wonders for science, but also had dramatic and troubling consequences for her children and husband - a tobacco farmer with a third grade education who struggled to afford housing and healthcare, and didn't learn about the cells until 25 years after Henrietta's death.

To read more about Henrietta Lacks and Hela check out these articles from:
The Baltimore City Paper
The New York Times
Johns Hopkins Magazine