"Kubicek wanted to run out of the morgue and back to the lab, but instead, she stared at Henrietta's arms and legs- anything to avoid looking into her lifeless eyes. Then Mary's gaze fell on Henrietta's feet and she gasped: Henrietta's toenails were covered in chipped bright red polish. "When I saw those toenails," Mary said years later, "I nearly fainted. I thought. Oh jeez, she's a real person. I started imagining her sitting in her bathroom painting those toenails, and it hit me for the first time that those cells we'd been working with all this time and sending all over the world, they came from a live woman. I'd never thought of it that way""(Schulman).
The Cells
"An investigator in the laboratory, Mary Kubicek, placed cells obtained from the biopsy specimen of Henrietta Lacks into culture by using the roller-tube technique; the cells grew robustly, contrary to the results with the previous specimens, becoming the first human cancer cell line immortalized in tissue culture"(Bonare). "The cells reproduced an entire generation every twenty-four hours, and they never stopped. Today there are millions, perhaps even billions, of her cells in small vials on ice. We knew that HPV caused her cancer and we knew she had syphilis. HPV virus happened to land on this one location in her genome that's right near this tumor gene that is the most volatile gene involving cancer we know. When that gene turned on, it causes incredibly aggressive cancers, so the theory is that this is what made her cancer so aggressive and what made the cells grow so quickly in culture"(For Henrietta). The cells were named HeLa after the initial 2 letters of Henrietta Lacks' first and last names. HeLa cells were misinterpreted as originating with "Harriet Lane" or "Helen Lane". "During the previous quarter century, Dr. Gey's samples of HeLa cells had multiplied in laboratories throughout the world, as they were transferred from researcher to researcher and across international borders"(Archives). "A factory was set up to mass produce her cells at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. They were producing about 3 trillion HeLa cells a week and sending them to labs around the world"(Weise).
Family
Even before Henrietta learned that she had cancer, her family had major financial and medical problems. They were poor and living in a run down house. They didn't have health insurance and most of them were too afraid to even step into a hospital, hearing all the terrible stories about what they did to black children. After the death of their mother, they had to pay for all the medical bills, while still grieving from the loss. The family fell apart after her death. Henrietta's children grew up hungry. "After the eldest son was sent off into the military and the father worked all day, the kids where passed to Ethel, a family friend. Every morning Ethel fed them each a cold biscuit that had to last them until dinner. She put latches and bolts on the fridge and cupboard doors to keep the children out between meals. They weren't allowed ice in their waters because it made noise. If they were good they would sometimes get an extra slice of bologna or a cold wiener, but that happened very rarely" (The Immortal Life). Up until a few years ago, the family had no idea of the kinds of things they were doing with their mother's cells, until someone in the scientific field recognized their last name and asked them for a sample of their blood. Millions of dollars have been made on her cells, and not a single penny had gone towards the family. They still cannot afford health care. For more than 60 years, this family has been pulled into a world that they cannot begin to fathom. Researchers have never stopped to talk with them about HeLa cells or how they fit into the picture until a few years ago. The family have argued several times with the NIH about not receiving any credit for their mother yet nothing significant has truly happened. In 2013, their family genome was posted on the internet for all to see. They officially reached a deal with the NIH that only scientists with permission could use the genome, but once something is on the internet, it's not very hard to find. Because of one person's actions, this family is left in debt, not even having life insurance while scientists make millions off of Henrietta's cells.
"But I always have thought it was strange, if our mother cells done so much for medicine, how come her family can't afford to see no doctors? Don't make no sense. People got rich off my mother without us even knowin' about them takin' her cells, now we don't get a dime. I used to get so mad about that to where it made me sick and I had to take pills. But I don't got it in me no more to fight. I just want to know who my mother was." -Deborah Lacks
Photos: HeLa cells in metaphase process of Mitosis
http://www.nature.com/ncb/journal/v5/n2/full/ncb0203-101.html |
Video of HeLa cells in division
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNua9E5jBa0 |