Contents
Books
The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks /
by Skloot, Rebecca, 1972-.
This distinctive work skillfully puts a human face on the bioethical questions surrounding the HeLa cell line. Henrietta Lacks, an African American mother of five, was undergoing treatment for cancer at Johns Hopkins University in 1951 when tissue samples were removed without her knowledge or permission and used to create HeLa, the first “immortal” cell line. HeLa has been sold around the world and used in countless medical research applications, including the development of the polio vaccine. Science writer Skloot, who worked on this book for ten years, entwines Lacks’s biography, the development of the HeLa cell line, and her own story of building a relationship with Lacks’s children. Full of dialog and vivid detail, this reads like a novel, but the science behind the story is also deftly handled. Verdict While there are other titles on this controversy (e.g., Michael Gold’s A Conspiracy of Cells: One Woman’s Immortal Legacy-and the Medical Scandal It Caused), this is the most compelling account for general readers, especially those interested in questions of medical research ethics.
Journal Articles
Gold, M. (1986). The immortal cells of Henrietta Lacks. Reader’s Digest, 12949-53.
Condensed from Michael Gold’s A Conspiracy of Cells. Henrietta Lacks died from cancer in 1951. Researchers placed some of the cells from her tumor in a nutrient medium, where they multiplied rapidly. The cells were code-named HeLa and were studied by researchers around the world. Unfortunately, HeLa cells contaminated other human cell samples, probably because a lab worker was careless. By 1981, HeLa cells had contaminated a full third of the most popular lines used in biomedical research. New HeLa-contaminated cell lines continue to surface today.
Jones, H. W. (1997). Record of the first physician to see Henrietta Lacks at the John Hopkins Hospital: History of the.. American Journal Of Obstetrics & Gynecology, 176(6), S227.
Presents the records of the first physician to meet Henrietta Lacks at the John Hopkins Hospital. Reason for Lacks’ presence at hospital; Relationship between physician and Lacks.
Lucey, B., Nelson-Rees, W., & Hutchins, G. (2009). Henrietta Lacks, HeLa cells, and cell culture contamination. Archives Of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, 133(9), 1463-1467.
Henrietta Lacks died in 1951 of an aggressive adenocarcinoma of the cervix. A tissue biopsy obtained for diagnostic evaluation yielded additional tissue for Dr George O. Gey’s tissue culture laboratory at Johns Hopkins (Baltimore, Maryland). The cancer cells, now called HeLa cells, grew rapidly in cell culture and became the first human cell line. HeLa cells were used by researchers around the world. However, 20 years after Henrietta Lacks’ death, mounting evidence suggested that HeLa cells contaminat- ed and overgrew other cell lines.
Video
Cancer cell research the way of all flesh / [videorecording] :
by Curtis, Adam, 1955-. British Broadcasting Corporation
“For years, scientists tried to get cancer cells to reproduce outside of the body with little success. Forty-five years ago, a few days before a woman named Henrietta died of cancer, a scientist took samples of her cancerous cells and placed them in a human placenta to see if they would grow. Not only did they grow, but Henrietta’s cells have since proven vital to cancer research worldwide. The program examines how the cells have advanced the war on cancer, and why they have caused controversy among scientists in the highly politicized research community”