Medical #WCW: Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa cells.

Henrietta Lacks, born Loretta Pleasant, was born August !, 1920 in Roanoke, Virginia. Lacks was a Mother, A tobacco farmer and a wife. She was raised by her grandfather from the age of four, after the passing of her mother. He raised her in a cabin that had once been the slave's quarters of an old plantation that a white family member had owned. In 1935, Henrietta and her cousin, David, have their first child while she is only fourteen years old. Five years later they would go on to have their second child, later they would discover she is developmentally disabled. In 1941 they marry and soon after they move to Maryland, where they have three more children. They're faced with the decision on how to approach the challenges of raising a child with developmental handicaps in a time when it wasn't understood, they choose to place their second child in a hospital for the negro insane. On January 29, 1951, Lacks visits John Hopkins Hospital experiencing bleeding and pain in her abdomen. She is diagnosed with cervical cancer by Doctor Howard Jones. While being treated with radiation, doctor's removed two cell samples from her with out her knowledge. While she's struggling with cervical cancer and radiation treatments, her youngest child is just 13 months olf. The doctor's eventually told her that she was too sick for her children to be able to visit her anymore. Regardless of how sick she was, she would look through the window of her hospital room to see her kids again as they played in the garden across from her hospital wing. On October fourth that same year, she passes away at the age of thirty-one. That wasn't the end for Lacks' cells however, they made their way to doctor George Otto Gey. He soon realized that Lacks' cells weren't like most other cells, these cells were far more durable and their lifespan was much longer. Doctor Gey created a cell line from them and named it HeLa, after Henrietta. The great thing about HeLa cells was their lifespan, it allowed the cells to be researched for longer than the average cell. Cancer cells also multiply rapidly, and despite being cancerous, Lacks' cells still share many of the same base characteristics as normal human cell and make HeLa cells the 'Default' cell line for studying. Eventually, Jonas Salk used the HeLA cells to create the Polio Vaccine. Since 1955, demand for HeLa cells has only increased as over ten thousand patents have been made using research involving Mrs. Lacks' cells. Researchers commonly use HeLa cells to study a new substance, and how it might react with human sensitivities. Medical breakthroughs that we can thank HeLa cells for include not only the polio vaccine but also, chemotherapy, IVF, the nobel prize was awarded to Harold Zur Hausen in 2008 for his research linking HPV to cervical cancer, as well as being useful in RNA sequencing. In 2010, John Hopkins released a statement regarding the use of Mrs. Lacks' cells without her consent. They explained that during that time, it wasn't a practice to require informed consent but that it is now and they uphold that strongly. During the same year, Morgan state university granted Henrietta with a post humorous honorary degree and Doctor Roland Pattillo donated a headstone to her unmarked grave. Despite the advancements made using Lacks' cells, her family doesn't make any money from the research and development from it. In 2000 the family was interviewed, it was discovered that they didn't even have health insurance themselves.
In 2010 Rebecca Skloot wrote 'The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks", a documentary of Lacks' life. In 2016 Oprah spoke of turning Lacks' life story into a movie. If it wasn't for Henrietta Lacks' durable cells and unintentional donation, many disease we see as no longer a threat, might still be. For that reason, Henrietta Lacks deserve a lot more than just being our medical woman crush wednesday.

Henrietta Lacks

http://www.biography.com/people/henrietta-lacks-21366671#legal-and-ethical-implications

Henrietta Lacks: the mother of modern medicine

Joanna Moorhead - https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/jun/23/henrietta-lacks-cells-medical-advances

E. (n.d.). EMBL - European Molecular Biology Laboratory. Retrieved March 15, 2017, from https://www.embl.de/aboutus/communication_outreach/media_relations/2013/130311_Heidelberg/