Not only were they still alive, but they were doubling every 24 hours, faster than the human body. When they put Henrietta’s cancer cells, or “HeLa,” in the roller-tube, they were amazed when it actually worked. George Gey discovered the roller-tube culturing technique that involved a rotating cylinder that kept the cells in motion. It was at this time that scientists were looking for ways to keep human cells alive outside the body to research diseases. They left her badly burned and were sadly ineffective.
So she started receiving treatment, which at the time involved hours of excruciating exposure to radium. She was 30 when she walked into the coloreds-only exam room at John’s Hopkins complaining of a lump on her cervix.ĭoctors biopsied the lump, and a while later, the diagnosis came back as stage I cervical cancer. She married young and soon was a mother of five young children. Henrietta was a poor black farmer who was born in Virginia in 1920.
THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS FULL BOOK PDF
If you want to save this summary for later, download the free PDF and read it whenever you want.ĭownload PDF Lesson 1: Henrietta died tragically of cancer when she was young, but her cells still live on today. Let’s hop on the Magic School Bus and jump back in time and into the life and cells of Henrietta Lacks!
The use of Hela cells has raised questions about privacy and ethics in cell donation.Even though her cells were famous, most people didn’t know of Henrietta and her family until recently.Henrietta Lacks was a poor black woman who died of aggressive cervical cancer at a young age, but her immortal cells lived on.Here are the 3 of the most fascinating lessons I’ve discovered: Journalist Rebecca Skloot gets to the bottom of the story in her book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. They did all of this without her permission or the knowledge of her family. Today, long after her death, scientists across the world still grow her cells. Henrietta’s cells reproduced at an incredible rate. When they took her cells for biopsy scientists found something amazing. Henrietta Lacks was a poor tobacco farmer and mother of five young children who died of cancer These miracle cells have been around since the ‘50s, but most researchers don’t know their origin. They helped with everything from finding a cure for polio to discovering AIDs and cancer treatments. They are one of the most important tools in modern medicine. If you were to walk into any biomedical laboratory right now, you would come across HeLa cells. Listen to the audio of this summary with a free reading.fm account*:
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