THE FARM REVEALED
PROGRAMME 4: TISSUE ENGINEERING
BACKGROUND
Modern understanding of cell biology owes a huge amount to the study of one cell line in particular. The line arose from a biopsy taken in 1951 from a Baltimore woman. Nowadays, it would be hard to find a lab in the world, or a molecular biologist, that hasn't worked with these cells. This is the story of HeLa cells – the standard laboratory cell.
On 9 February 1951, Baltimore dancer Henrietta Lack was admitted to Johns Hopkins Hospital to have radiotherapy on a malignant tumour in her cervix. Just before she was treated a young doctor took a biopsy from the tumour and gave it to George Gey who was interested in culturing cancer cells.
Gey had cultured cells before, but Henrietta's multiplied and grew like no others. As the lab cultures thrived, so did the tumour cells in Henrietta's body. On the day of Henrietta's death, George Gey appeared on US national television, proclaiming that his new cell cultures would bring an end to cancer. He held up a vial of her cells and called them HeLa cells.
Henrietta was buried in her hometown in Virginia in an unmarked grave. Her family, who had reluctantly given permission for doctors to take a tissue sample, knew nothing about the cells that lived on after her.
Gey went on to use HeLa cells as a way of growing the polio virus in the lab. He made vital progress in characterising the virus, which finally enabled Jonas Salk to produce the first effective polio vaccine.
Realising that HeLa cells would be a valuable tool in all kinds of biological research, Gey packaged up samples and sent them to colleagues around the world. Vigorous, easy-to-culture cells are a gift to science. They have been used to study genetics, drugs, viral and bacterial infections, cancer, cell functioning and more, much more.
Meantime, the Lack family didn't discover the enormity of Henrietta's contribution to science until 25 years after she had passed away. They were never kept informed, approached for consent or given any remuneration.
The story raises ethical questions about consent and about what is morally or legally due to a person if something of commercial value is developed from their tissue. The advent of modern applications of molecular biology puts these issues even more firmly in the spotlight.
