March 05, 2005

In 1991 a new species was named. Its origins lie in 1951, when Henrietta Lacks was admitted to the Johns Hopkins hospital. The diagnosis was cervical cancer. Ten months later, she was dead.

The new species is Helacyton gartleri; it is the cell line cultured from the diseased cervix of Henrietta Lacks. The culture was created by George Gey, a researcher who wanted to understand cancer, but was frustrated by, among other things, the inability to maintain a culture of human cells in the laboratory. Inevitably, cells taken for culture would weaken and die. Until Henrietta Lacks. Hers were found to be amazingly viable, and the Hela cell line was underway. A little too underway, as it turned out. Modern DNA techniques can distinguish Hela cells from other cell lines, and they can also show that Henrietta Lacks cancer was probably the result of Human papilloma virus infection. The cells were cultured without her knowledge or consent, and her family remained ignorant of her role until 1975. Henrietta Lacks's contribution to science is now more openly acknowledged, but still little known. What does a Hela cell look like? Like this, and this.

posted by polychrome 19 years ago
  • Wow. What a great post.
  • Great post! Nice work on this. Can you imagine yourself telling your kid, "Unchecked, your long-dead Grandma's cancer cells would have taken over the world." Wow.
  • Fascinating post! Kudos, polychrome!
  • Great post! Very interesting, indeed.
  • the hela cell looks like a freaky eyeball. great post poly, thanks!
  • ++
  • Wow, that is really interesting. And a little freaky, too. Thanks!!
  • I first learned about Henrietta Lacks from this article by Anne Enright, What's left of Henrietta Lacks? Well worth reading.
  • ))))
  • the unmarked grave. the cells that never die. that take over. evrywhere. the earth splits. it came from HelLa.
  • Fantastic post, thanks. Really interesting science and ethics issues.
  • What a fascinating set of articles. Thanks, polychrome and SlightlyFoxed. Anne Enright's article rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe because I was expecting it to be about Henrietta Lacks and not about her pregnancy. "As for Henrietta - I am pregnant". She professes to want to understand Henrietta but never gets too far outside of herself.
  • Great post. Much appreciated.
  • Rhiannon: I'm with you there, the article left me flat.
  • I've probably grown these cells. I grew HEK292 cells (supposedly) but given the article now I'm not sure they were really Human Embryonic Kidney or if they were contaminated with HeLa. Despite what the article implies, mammalian cell cultures aren't easy to grow. They make it sound like left unchecked these cells would grow up and out the sides of the jars and flow out into the streets. They aren't like bacteria, see. They need specific amounts of media, blood serum, the right pH balance, and room to grow. They only grow in single layers, they will not form more than one sheet of cells. They are inhibited by growing when they touch each other. Too many cells in one area and they start to choke each other off, dying because they can't get enough food. They are susceptible to fungal and bacterial infestation; without an immune system to protect them the slow-dividing mammalian cells are easily outpaced and outcompeted by the rapidly breeding bacteria. They are resilient though. Freeze them in liquid nitrogen and they'll stay good for years. Pull them out, thaw them slowly, and enough of them will be viable to start a new culture.
  • Am I right in recalling that in 'How the Dead Live' by Will Self, the dead people buy cans of HeLa to paint their rooms with (for reasons which altogether elude me now)? Good book, anyway.
  • Frogs: Glad that you confirmed that for me. I was thinking that these things were not exactly going to take over the world,(at least not without a lot of help) and wondering if I hadn't been paying attention in my bio classes so long ago. So, if HeLa can live long enough to be transfered and contaminate other cell cultures, could it be possible that there could be clumps of HeLa growing in people who work with these cells--say, in the mucous membranes of the nose, throat, and lungs or in the eyes? Could it be possible that these cells would overcome the immune response? *trying for another horror sci-fi plot
  • For BlueHorse: Hela
  • Eeek! Queen of the Afterlife is her benevolent aspect? Let's not monkey around with Ms. Hela