I Want to Find Research Faculty Enter the last name, specialty or keyword for your search below. Apply for Admission M. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
She was a poor black tobacco farmer whose cells—taken without her knowledge in —became one of the most important tools in medicine, vital for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, and more. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells a riveting story of the collision between ethics, race, and medicine; of scientific discovery and faith healing; and of a daughter consumed with questions about the mother she never knew.
Also explore the resources found throughout this site for book groups, classrooms, and more. And click here to read excerpts of the book. Many scientific landmarks since then have used her cells, including cloning, gene mapping and in vitro fertilization. There has been a lot of confusion over the years about the source of HeLa cells. When the cells were taken, they were given the code name HeLa, for the first two letters in Henrietta and Lacks.
Today, anonymizing samples is a very important part of doing research on cells. Other pseudonyms, like Helen Larsen, eventually showed up, too. How did you first get interested in this story? I first learned about Henrietta in I was 16 and a student in a community college biology class. The moment I heard about her, I became obsessed: Did she have any kids? What do they think about part of their mother being alive all these years after she died?
Years later, when I started being interested in writing, one of the first stories I imagined myself writing was hers. I knew she was desperate to learn about her mother.
I went down to Clover, Virginia, where Henrietta was raised, and tracked down her cousins, then called Deborah and left these stories about Henrietta on her voice mail. Earlier efforts to make this change failed in , but now is the time to revisit the Common Rule, and to reconsider the question of consent. In the past, some researchers have warned that this would impose additional burdens. But a compromise must be found. The last time the US Department of Health and Human Services worked to revise the Common Rule, it proposed a series of other changes at the same time; perhaps one way forward is to tackle the question of consent for biospecimens on its own, and with thorough discussion involving not only scientists, but also the public.
In the current climate of reckoning with racial injustice, some researchers who use HeLa cells have concluded that they should offer financial compensation. For example, a laboratory at the University of California, San Diego, and a UK-based biomedical company have announced donations to the Henrietta Lacks Foundation, which was established in by Rebecca Skloot, the author of a book about Lacks. Other institutions and researchers must examine whether — and how — their own work builds on past injustices.
And they must consider how best to make amends. COVID, a disease that is disproportionately affecting Black people in a number of countries, offers an opportunity for those who wish to usher in a fairer era of research.
To give back now, researchers should not only study why the disease is more prevalent and severe among Black people, but also help to implement solutions to close the gap. And, once a vaccine is available — possibly as a result of work with HeLa cells — researchers must work with marginalized communities to see that it reaches those who need it most. The past cannot be undone, but we must acknowledge the wrongs of previous generations, and those wrongs that persist today.
Justice must be done, and the time to start is now. Adey, A. Nature , — PubMed Article Google Scholar. Wolinetz, C. Article Google Scholar.
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