Henrietta Lacks

Henrietta Lacks  born August 1920 died October 1951.  Ms Lacks was a working class African American woman who was diagnosed with cervical cancer in early 1951 and died later that year from metastases.   During her diagnosis and treatment, without her consent, cells were taken from both her healthy and cancerous tissue.  Cells from the cancer tissue were found to be particularly resilient in laboratory conditions and were able to be replicated outside the human body for the first time - the first "immortal cell line".  These cells came to be known as HeLa cells.

Since this time Ms Lack's cells have been reproduced in immense quantities and used for a huge variety of purposes.  

• 20 Tons of her cells have been reproduced.
• More of Ms Lack's cells have been outside her body than were ever in her body
• There have been nearly 11000 patents taken out using her cells.
• Ms Lack's cells were the first ones successfully cloned
• Ms Lack's cells were used in the development of the polio vaccination


• Ms Lack's family were only informed of what had been done with their ancestor's physical legacy when scientists contaminated the HeLa line and wished to get new sources.

Poignantly, this was the photo many family members carried around of their grandmother.

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