Henrietta Lacks’ ‘Immortal’ Cells
Journalist Rebecca Skloot’s new book investigates how a poor black tobacco farmer had a groundbreaking impact on modern medicine
- By Sarah Zielinski
- Smithsonian.com, January 22, 2010, Subscribe
Henrietta Lacks' cells were essential in developing the polio vaccine and were used in scientific landmarks such as cloning, gene mapping and in vitro fertilization. Courtesy of the Lacks family
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A Microscopic View of Henrietta Lacks' 'Immortal' CellsHeLa cells were the first immortal human cells ever grown in culture and are invaluable to medical researchers |
Medical researchers use laboratory-grown human cells to learn the intricacies of how cells work and test theories about the causes and treatment of diseases. The cell lines they need are “immortal”—they can grow indefinitely, be frozen for decades, divided into different batches and shared among scientists. In 1951, a scientist at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, created the first immortal human cell line with a tissue sample taken from a young black woman with cervical cancer. Those cells, called HeLa cells, quickly became invaluable to medical research—though their donor remained a mystery for decades. In her new book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, journalist Rebecca Skloot tracks down the story of the source of the amazing HeLa cells, Henrietta Lacks, and documents the cell line's impact on both modern medicine and the Lacks family.
Who was Henrietta Lacks?
She was a black tobacco farmer from southern Virginia who got cervical cancer when she was 30. A doctor at Johns Hopkins took a piece of her tumor without telling her and sent it down the hall to scientists there who had been trying to grow tissues in culture for decades without success. No one knows why, but her cells never died.
Why are her cells so important?
Henrietta’s cells were the first immortal human cells ever grown in culture. They were essential to developing the polio vaccine. They went up in the first space missions to see what would happen to cells in zero gravity. Many scientific landmarks since then have used her cells, including cloning, gene mapping and in vitro fertilization.
There has been a lot of confusion over the years about the source of HeLa cells. Why?
When the cells were taken, they were given the code name HeLa, for the first two letters in Henrietta and Lacks. Today, anonymizing samples is a very important part of doing research on cells. But that wasn’t something doctors worried about much in the 1950s, so they weren’t terribly careful about her identity. When some members of the press got close to finding Henrietta’s family, the researcher who’d grown the cells made up a pseudonym—Helen Lane—to throw the media off track. Other pseudonyms, like Helen Larsen, eventually showed up, too. Her real name didn’t really leak out into the world until the 1970s.
How did you first get interested in this story?
I first learned about Henrietta in 1988. I was 16 and a student in a community college biology class. Everybody learns about these cells in basic biology, but what was unique about my situation was that my teacher actually knew Henrietta’s real name and that she was black. But that’s all he knew. The moment I heard about her, I became obsessed: Did she have any kids? What do they think about part of their mother being alive all these years after she died? Years later, when I started being interested in writing, one of the first stories I imagined myself writing was hers. But it wasn’t until I went to grad school that I thought about trying to track down her family.
How did you win the trust of Henrietta’s family?
Part of it was that I just wouldn’t go away and was determined to tell the story. It took almost a year even to convince Henrietta’s daughter, Deborah, to talk to me. I knew she was desperate to learn about her mother. So when I started doing my own research, I’d tell her everything I found. I went down to Clover, Virginia, where Henrietta was raised, and tracked down her cousins, then called Deborah and left these stories about Henrietta on her voice mail. Because part of what I was trying to convey to her was I wasn’t hiding anything, that we could learn about her mother together. After a year, finally she said, fine, let’s do this thing.
When did her family find out about Henrietta’s cells?
Twenty-five years after Henrietta died, a scientist discovered that many cell cultures thought to be from other tissue types, including breast and prostate cells, were in fact HeLa cells. It turned out that HeLa cells could float on dust particles in the air and travel on unwashed hands and contaminate other cultures. It became an enormous controversy. In the midst of that, one group of scientists tracked down Henrietta’s relatives to take some samples with hopes that they could use the family’s DNA to make a map of Henrietta’s genes so they could tell which cell cultures were HeLa and which weren’t, to begin straightening out the contamination problem.
So a postdoc called Henrietta’s husband one day. But he had a third-grade education and didn’t even know what a cell was. The way he understood the phone call was: “We’ve got your wife. She’s alive in a laboratory. We’ve been doing research on her for the last 25 years. And now we have to test your kids to see if they have cancer.” Which wasn’t what the researcher said at all. The scientists didn’t know that the family didn’t understand. From that point on, though, the family got sucked into this world of research they didn’t understand, and the cells, in a sense, took over their lives.
How did they do that?
This was most true for Henrietta’s daughter. Deborah never knew her mother; she was an infant when Henrietta died. She had always wanted to know who her mother was but no one ever talked about Henrietta. So when Deborah found out that this part of her mother was still alive she became desperate to understand what that meant: Did it hurt her mother when scientists injected her cells with viruses and toxins? Had scientists cloned her mother? And could those cells help scientists tell her about her mother, like what her favorite color was and if she liked to dance.
Deborah’s brothers, though, didn’t think much about the cells until they found out there was money involved. HeLa cells were the first human biological materials ever bought and sold, which helped launch a multi-billion-dollar industry. When Deborah’s brothers found out that people were selling vials of their mother’s cells, and that the family didn’t get any of the resulting money, they got very angry. Henrietta’s family has lived in poverty most of their lives, and many of them can’t afford health insurance. One of her sons was homeless and living on the streets of Baltimore. So the family launched a campaign to get some of what they felt they were owed financially. It consumed their lives in that way.
What are the lessons from this book?
For scientists, one of the lessons is that there are human beings behind every biological sample used in the laboratory. So much of science today revolves around using human biological tissue of some kind. For scientists, cells are often just like tubes or fruit flies—they’re just inanimate tools that are always there in the lab. The people behind those samples often have their own thoughts and feelings about what should happen to their tissues, but they’re usually left out of the equation.
And for the rest of us?
The story of HeLa cells and what happened with Henrietta has often been held up as an example of a racist white scientist doing something malicious to a black woman. But that’s not accurate. The real story is much more subtle and complicated. What is very true about science is that there are human beings behind it and sometimes even with the best of intentions things go wrong.
One of the things I don’t want people to take from the story is the idea that tissue culture is bad. So much of medicine today depends on tissue culture. HIV tests, many basic drugs, all of our vaccines—we would have none of that if it wasn’t for scientists collecting cells from people and growing them. And the need for these cells is going to get greater, not less. Instead of saying we don’t want that to happen, we just need to look at how it can happen in a way that everyone is OK with.
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Related topics: Black History Biology Vaccines Scientific Innovation
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Comments (3419)
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Omg this creeps me out all the time
Posted by Natalie on May 13,2012 | 08:01 PM
I am 74 yrs old and I am just now learning about Henrietta Lacks. I am proud of the contribution that Mrs Lacks cells have made, however when I read the book and see how uneducated and poor her family is, I have to deduct that an educated, middle or higher income family would not have been taken advantage of in this manner. And lets get real they often experimented with black poor people.
Posted by Barbara Robinson Knox on May 12,2012 | 03:43 PM
I am reading this book now, and I have to say that, even with all the attention it has been getting in the press, the actual story has far exceeded my expectations. This is one of the most compelling and well-written stories I have ever read. The science is clearly well-researched and carefully explained, but the story of Henrietta and her family is truly unforgettable. Thanks, Ms. Skloot, for such a literary gift.
Posted by Anne Gehrenbeck-Shim on April 1,2012 | 09:07 PM
and 2 years later... I first heard about HeLa 15 or 20(maybe 40 years ago in Bio 253) years ago, so that is an old story for me. But from day one and every time I think about it I feel that families and persons that become central to the birth of profit making health technologies should share in the profits. And on another offshoot, I have wondered if all the HeLa was weighed how many tons of her/it there would be. I have a hunch that there is more of her now than the total weight of all of her decedents and maybe first order cousins as well.
Posted by Mike Scott on March 27,2012 | 02:04 AM
This is still going on. In Minnesota, mandatory newborn, unconsented DNA bloodwork had to be argued in state supreme court. Mandatory written consent DNA testing is in military. Many states do 50 metabolic tests with PKU heel stick on newborns without your opt in, opt out signature, I bet.
You need to get your copies of these tests and put under lock and key. It is killing me how long some states hand onto your babies tests. DNA test are routinely done at Medical schools, often without your signature or knowledge where the database is and who is using it. Many people can have access to your records. Wake up people to Brave New World.
Posted by Mrs. Smith on March 6,2012 | 11:33 AM
wow,,,thats amazing something happen? to immortal cells?
Posted by zokuto on March 3,2012 | 03:32 AM
Learning about her in school, her son just came with his wife and daughter yesterday and talked with us! It was very nice to meet her son! So cruel with these scientist did without her permission or her familes as well. Also yes she is mixed, white and black, if you read her story you'll know that her family came from white slaves called Lackes, on of the sons had a few kids with a slave, the slaves later changed their name to Lacks. Its definitely a tell all book, you learn about what everyone knows about her and overall i really think its very educational!! My book is signed by her son Sonny aka David Jr., his wife Sheryl and their daughter Jerri. Get the book and read it! Its without a doubt worth it. Also everyone should send in a letter about her being apart of Black History Month! She deserves to be credit, afterall, I think her cells did more than other person in this world!
Posted by Nicole on February 24,2012 | 11:24 AM
Love this article. I do think the family is deservimg of compensation, but I can't help but to think of this question. Since the article says that the HeLa cells are the only ones to survive, "How many others were tested before her? And how was teirs taken? To know that hers were the only ones to survived there had to have been others tested. I'm just thinking.
Posted by Bettie on February 22,2012 | 12:51 AM
There are a number of ways to look at this story. I think that taking and growing Henrietta's cells without her or her family's knowledge was a misguided act. I don't think that it was a racist act; altho the MD took and grew the cells without permission, we don't have his/her statement as to whether he/she would have done the same thing with a white woman's cells. We cannot make assumptions.
I can only hope that, while disturbed at how long it took them to be told their mother's story, they are also proud of her contributions to medical science.
Immortal cell lines such as HeLa cells are VITAL to continued medical advancements. Henrietta unwittingly (I won't say unwillingly) left behind an incredible gift to mankind. Isn't that what we all strive to do - leave something good behind when we die?
Posted by kristine on February 19,2012 | 03:52 PM
Not to take away from her blackness, but Henrietta's image appears to suggest whiteness as well. Not that the cells care one way or another or those who have benefitted from the research; it isn't a cause for judgement or pride one way or another. But espeically in a scientific article where genetics could be a big part of the story it seems irresponsible to skirt what seems obvious by her appearance. No one would or should attribute shame to Henrietta or her family if she was a little of every race on the planet...after all, we are all related anyway if you go back far enough.
Posted by 1Friend on February 13,2012 | 12:43 PM
African Americans have always been closed mouthed or secretive about what goes on in thier families. Being closed mouthed is apart of our culture for many valid reasons. Some of those reasons include not understanding many different illnesses. Mental Illness, for example, is a conditon largely denied and rejected in the African American community. It was the reason for under utilization of mental health resurces for so many years. There was a time when turburculosis was a "hushed utterance". It is possible that Henretta Lacks immediate family did did wich to talk about, share or provide information to her children because they did not want to tarnish her immage or "set tounghs a waggen about someone they loved dearley". We need to not just assume that people are at fault for not passing information along and "consider the age and the context in which people lived'. Further when much of the worlds goods,riches,oppertunities and resources are denied and witheld from a people then it cannot be automatically expected that that people would so learned as to know all that should be done. So much of what the African American has lived and endured has been criminalized, and dondemned. When she became ill her family could very well have been experienceing shame as well as grief and loss, and kept the situation silent to their children. What a lovely couple. My heart goes out to this family. Eleanor C. Harris
Posted by Eleanor C. Harris on February 1,2012 | 04:03 PM
Many times overt passions, be they positive or typical, (negative), is the propellant for biased rhetoric. We have the first ethnically diverse American president, (coming from the two largest American groups. The glaring and sad truth is he is only recognized as black. Our president should at the very least, be recognized as the "olive branch"; placating the ideas, (real or imagined of all interested parties. Now, the clear divisive element in this story is the possibility of exploitation. However, clear and linear intelligence says: Slaves were dispensable items who typically died through winters, not having the luxury of shoes, any standard of clothing. "White"(acceptable) history reports of slave children freezing overnight, while holding lights outside for expected 'white" guests. Most of us "white" Americans have been advanced in some part, remotely or otherwise through the economics of slavery. Most of us Europeans arrived in America with our families intact, replete with clothing, money and the resource of FREEDOM. Imagine, if you dare, a fire in your home in the middle of night, hopefully, you are wearing pajamas. Whatever state you are FORCED to leave in, is the very state you will have to continue in. If that is not hard enough, dare to imagine the added hardship of seeing your children sold, or being that small child, speaking a foreign language and working for people who treated you like an animal. Yes, when intelligence allows true insight the positive outcome is true clarity. Please be aware that just about anyone who is wearing any type of precious jewelry gold, diamonds etc. could most likely be wearing stripped African resources. Now here is the outrageous punch line, when we see a minority we lock our car doors or clutch our collective purses. My obvious verdict in the case of Henrietta's children is one of mutual benefactors.
Posted by John on January 25,2012 | 12:33 AM
Not being a scientist I ask these questions gingerly. Do we not leave cells behind us constantly? Police collect samples of cells when doing DNA test without concent, do they not? When this occurred, cells were not a commodity. The only reason they are now is because of the persistence, genius and frankly, luck, of this doctor and others who followed. Discoveries such as this require us to reevaluate our thinking and make changes such as requiring concent and compensating for use but it is odd to suggest that you should retroactively compensate for something no one knew could happen.
Personally, I would be thrilled to learn that a family member's cells could have contributed to such incredible advancements and to saving so many people's lives. Had it happened that the cells came from a wealthy individual, would there still be a question of compensation? Would there even be a story that people are interested to read?
Lastly, If the donor's family is compensated retroactively and we think that is right, should we not look at the families of the researchers who were at least equally responsible for the success of the cells and make sure they were compensated? My hunch is that some big corporation and it's executives we're the ones to profit greatly for the marketing of the cells and not the researchers themselves. I would be interested to know if there is any reasearch on them.
Posted by Heather on January 20,2012 | 02:36 AM
Perhaps many commenting are unaware of the trillion dollar research industry. I do work in cancer research as a financial analyst. And, let me tell you patients are compensated. It may be just a small stipend, or it may be travel reimbursement. But most importantly they do not pay for the care they receive. They all sign a consent allowing the research institution to provide data and/or tissue to the study sponsor. If they did not consent to their tissue being used and the institution still used it, we would be shut down by the feds and open to all kinds of lawsuits.
The HeLa cell issue is a major wrong that should have been corrected. On many fronts, the family was entitled to compensation. The main one being that the cells were taken without consent. Today if your primary care doctor decided to take a sample from you and then sell it to a lab, you could sue the pants off your provider and anyone else involved. So to say the family is greedy and looking for a handout is malarkey. They are entitled to huge compensation. Without her cells polio would not have been eradicated, are you kidding me? This woman's cells have been at the center of major medical breakthroughs and you say they are being greedy when her very DNA was taken to benefit the rest of the world's population.
Maybe some of you would be more understanding if someone sat you down and specifically outlined how her cells have impacted your lives, your parents lives and your children's lives. Perhaps your tone would be quite different if someone said your child with leukemia would not have been able to get the treatments he/she gets without this poor tobacco farmer's cells. Maybe you'd be a little more sympathetic to their family.
Posted by Tanisha on January 18,2012 | 03:27 PM
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