The woman you see in the thumbnail is the reason that the science of cancer has evolved into what it is today. Her name is Henrietta Lacks, and her cells are the oldest living group of cells in the entire world. She was 31 years old when diagnosed with cervical cancer and died only 6 months after. A mother of 5, she procrastinated making an appointment to get checked out, until the pain and other issues were too much to handle. These cells can run up to 2,500 dollars a vial. Originally though, they were not supposed to even have exited her body.
As only one of the few hospitals at the time that treated African-Americans, the John Hopkins Hospital began to treat Mrs. Lacks with radium. Obviously, to biopsy a mass or clump of cells you need to take a sample of the cells. They were sent to Dr. George Gray’s tissue lab - for years, John Hopkins Hospital had been sending cervical cancer cells to him, and for years he had been secretly taking some and keeping them. The cell samples kept dying quickly due to being out of their element. Later, Dr. Grey figured out the issue and began to see great reactions. After seeing how fast these cells duplicated, Dr. George Gray’s instinct was to take the cells without permission from Henrietta Lacks. Mind you, this was and still is quite illegal. The “HeLa” cells double every 20-24 hours, compared to regular cells that would just casually die.
Now, these “HeLa” cells are used to study which drugs and toxins can begin to degrade the cancer cells. These help us to study the effects of toxins, drugs, hormones, vaccines, and viruses without having to experiment on humans. They have been used to observe radiation and chemotherapy on cells without harming humans or animals. In fact, these cells played a vital role in the polio vaccine. Tragically, in the end, Henrietta Lacks’s cancer progressed far too much and she passed away on October 4, 1951, at the young and vibrant age of 31. Leaving behind her husband, David Lacks, and five children: Lawrence Lacks, Elsie Lacks, David "Sonny" Lacks Jr., Deborah Lacks Pullum, Zakariyya Bari Abdul Rahman (born Joseph Lacks). Henrietta’s father actually outlived her, he was 88 years old (quite old for his time) and her mom actually died at the young age of 38. Three of her kids are still alive, though her daughter died at 16! Crazy to think that her daughter died at our age and never got to fully live her life and see the advances that were made.
Since MLK day was just celebrated, I felt that we needed to learn more about the unsung heroes of the medical and scientific world. Henrietta Lacks was a loving mother of 5 and wife, her life was taken by fast-growing cancer and medical treatment that was not perfected.
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.or...