HeLa (cells)

HeLa cells are so-called "immortal" cells taken from a dying cancer patient in 1951. They were named after Henrietta Lacks, a thirty-one-year-old Black American woman from Virginia who was suffering from cervical cancer. Doctors removed a sample of Lacks's cancerous tumor, without her consent, while she was undergoing treatment. When the cells were examined, doctors discovered that instead of dying, as normal cells would do, Lacks's cells continued to multiply. HeLa cells were studied by the medical community for decades and resulted in numerous breakthroughs. They were instrumental in advancing cancer research and developing treatments for polio, cancer, Parkinson's disease, and AIDS. The cells were also used in scientific fields such as cloning, gene mapping, and in vitro fertilization. However, for many years, Lacks's family was unaware that her cells were being used for research, and many voiced ethical concerns around commercial profits gained from the cells as well as threats to the medical privacy of Lacks and her family.

Background

Henrietta Lacks was born Loretta Pleasant in Roanoke, Virginia, in 1920. She later changed her name to Henrietta. She grew up with her grandfather on a tobacco farm in Virginia and married David "Day" Lacks in 1941. The couple later moved to Maryland. By 1950, Henrietta Lacks was the mother of five children.

About four and a half months after the birth of her fifth child, Lacks began experiencing abdominal pain and bleeding. In January 1951, she sought treatment at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. At the time, Johns Hopkins was the only hospital in the region willing to treat Black Americans experiencing poverty. Lacks was diagnosed with cervical cancer and began an extensive treatment program. She underwent daily X-ray therapy, and doses of the chemical radium were injected into her tumor; both were standard treatments for the era. Her cancer continued to spread, however, and Lacks died on October 4, 1951.

Overview

During Lacks's treatments, doctors performed several biopsies on her tumor. During one of those, two thin strips of cancerous tissue were removed from her cervix and sent to Dr. George Gey at the Tissue Culture Laboratory at Johns Hopkins. Gey was involved in cancer research and was often given samples by the other doctors for study. He cataloged the samples after the first two letters of the patient's first and last names. As a result, the samples from Henrietta Lacks became HeLa.

While examining the cells, Gey noticed something very different about them. Most cells divide about forty to fifty times before dying. The HeLa cells doubled every twenty to twenty-four hours and continued to divide indefinitely. Unlike normal human cells, which have forty-six chromosomes, the HeLa cells had seventy-six to eighty mutated chromosomes. Further research revealed their abnormal growth was caused by the presence of a special enzyme. As normal cells divide, a string of DNA at the tips of the chromosomes deteriorates over time, eventually resulting in cell death. The HeLa cells produced an enzyme that rebuilt these DNA strings, basically reversing the aging process.

Gey had been hoping to develop a continuously replicating, or "immortal," line of cells that could be used in research. The HeLa cells were the first human cell line capable of dividing indefinitely outside the body ever discovered. Because Gey's ultimate goal was finding a cure for cancer, he freely shared the cells with other doctors and research facilities. Within a few years, the HeLa cells were in high demand.

In 1953, they were used by virologist Jonas Salk in his research on developing a polio vaccine. Salk had created a vaccine to combat the viral disease, which could cause paralysis, breathing difficulties, and possibly death. He needed a large amount of cells to test its effectiveness before human trials could begin. The rapidly growing HeLa cells were perfect for the job. By 1955, Salk had produced a working polio vaccine.

Because of the usefulness of her cells, Henrietta Lacks has sometimes been referred to as the mother of modern medicine. HeLa cells have been used to gauge how viruses react, to reprogram other cells, and to develop laboratory standards for storing cells. They have additionally been used in research on a variety of diseases, including cancer, tuberculosis, AIDS, and Parkinson's disease. The cells have been instrumental in cloning, in vitro fertilization, and stem-cell research, and have helped scientists better diagnose genetic disorders. Efforts to develop a vaccine to combat the COVID-19 pandemic that began in 2020 were also greatly aided by the cells.

The family of Henrietta Lacks was at first unaware her cells were being used for such research. About two decades after her death, scientists requested blood samples from her children to facilitate their research on the cells. They never informed the family of the purpose of the samples; Lacks's children thought they were being screened for cancer. Eventually, they learned the story behind their mother's cells and that her genetic material was a highly valuable medical research tool. By the twenty-first century, the HeLa cells had been used for decades' worth of research. As a result, it was impossible to stop many laboratories from freely accessing them. In 2013, a team of German scientists released the full HeLa genome, without the family's consent, and logged it into a public database. The genome could disclose medical information about Lacks's descendants. That same year, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) entered into an agreement with the Lacks family to implement some form of control over the genetic material. The agreement mandated that any facility receiving funding from the NIH must request permission to use the cells.

Ethical questions about how the HeLa cells and other genetic samples are obtained eventually led to policy changes in the medical field. In the 1990s, scientists and doctors began asking patients for their consent before using some genetic material for research. If samples were used without consent, the patient's identity was kept anonymous. By the 2020s, Lacks's family had also begun suing biotechnology companies involved in producing HeLa cells, claiming that, after commercially profiting off of the cells in an exploitative manner for years, those companies owed the family compensation. In addition to consent, some took issue with the public availability of the HeLa cells and their genetic information as a violation of medical privacy.

Bibliography

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