Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor
Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her
cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in
medicine.
The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still
alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could
pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they’d weigh more than 50 million
metric tons—as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital
for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the
atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro
fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping.
