By Arianna Sukhdeo '25
“She's the most important person in the world and her family living in poverty. If our mother is so important to science, why can't we get health insurance?” ― Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
More commonly known as Henrietta Lacks, Loretta Pleasant was one of the most important, yet largely unknown, women in scientific history. Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman who made major contributions to the medical field with her "immortal cancer cells," known as "HeLa cells," which became the first immortal human cell line.
Lacks was born on August 1, 1920, in Roanoke, Virginia. She was married to David Lacks in 1941 and had five children. She was a tobacco farmer at a young age and later became a housewife when she married and raised children. Lacks lived an ordinary life with her family until she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Doctors took tissue samples of her cancer cells during her radiation treatments without her consent. Even today, this is still a controversial issue between her family and the media since the scientific community gained wealth and life-altering discoveries using Lacks' cells.
While Lacks sadly passed away shortly after on October 4, 1951, at only 31, scientists noticed that her cells grew exponentially while surviving longer than normal cells. This prompted further studying of her cells, which were isolated (to avoid contamination), and eventually created the cell line, "HeLa" (derived from her name). Without her family's knowledge or consent, HeLa cells have been sold to pharmaceutical companies, which have significantly profited. In the 70 years since, Lacks' cells have revolutionized medical research and made major contributions to our world, including creating the Polio vaccine, the study of cancer, rapid cell growth, and chromosome counting. HeLa cells are so widely used in the scientific field that over 10 thousand patients have been registered using them, and their cost varies from $200 - $10,000. For these contributions, many consider Henrietta Lacks to be figuratively - and literally - immortal.
If anything, we should all be thanking Henrietta Lacks for her largely unknown yet significant contribution of HeLa cells to modern science and the public good. Hopefully, HeLa cells can continue to help develop medications and treatments in the future, while providing honor to her memory and family.
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