At age 31, Henrietta Lacks visited the Johns Hopkins hospital in hopes of being treated for her abnormal pain and bleeding in her abdomen. Without her knowledge, the doctors removed two cervical samples from her. The cells from Henrietta’s tumor were given to and researched by Dr. George Otto. He noticed something peculiar about her cells: they were far more durable and survived way longer than regular cells. Lack’s cells would double every 20 to 24 hours.

Otto quickly isolated and duplicated one of the cells, creating a cell line. Cell lines are a collection of cells that originate from the same cell maintained for an extended period retaining their functions. In 1955, the demand for the HeLa cells prompted scientists to clone them, and Johns Hopkins offered the cells to be free of use to the world.

The HeLa case raised questions about the legality of using genetic materials without patient awareness or consent. Lacks and her family weren’t allowed to harvest, clone, and sell her cells. The Lacks family only found out about the HeLa cells in the 1970s, decades after the cell’s cloning. In 1973 scientists contacted the family in hopes of blood samples and other genetic material, actively ignoring the family’s inquiries.

In 1988 BBC screened an award winning documentary on Lacks and HeLa. In 2010 Rebecca Skloot wrote a book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. In 2017 Oprah Winfrey and HBO developed a film based on Skloot’s, also the executive producer’s, book from 2010, consulted by Lack’s sons David Lacks Jr. and Zakariyya Rahman, and her granddaughter Jeri Lacks. Organizations who have profited off of Lacks have now recognized her involuntary involvement. The Lacks family have been honored at the Smithsonian Institution and the National Foundation for Cancer Research.

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