February 26th, 2021

Henrietta Lacks was an African-American woman whose cancer cells are the source of the HeLa cell line which is the first immortalized human cell line and one of the most important cell lines in medical research today.

Henrietta Lacks was born on August 1, 1920 in Roanoke, Virginia. She married David Lacks and gave birth to five children. After giving birth to her fifth child at the age of 31, she was diagnosed with a malignant tumor on her cervix. At the time, this hospital was one of only a few hospitals to treat poor African-Americans. Her options were limited due to the lack of cancer research done during that period of time and later on that same year she passed away.

Tissue samples from her tumors were taken without consent during treatment and these samples were then subsequently cultured into the HeLa cell line.

Her cells would go on to advance medical research for years to come, as they had the unique ability to be indestructible. "They have been used to test the effects of radiation and poisons, to study the human genome, to learn more about how viruses work, and played a crucial role in the development of the polio vaccine," as Johns Hopkins says. It is also serving as a tool to uncover crucial information about COVID19.