Hela Cells

Henrietta Lacks was a 30- year – old black mother of five when she was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1951. She went to Johns Hopkins hospital to have the tumor looked at; they took a sample and sent her home. A few weeks later, when Dr. Lawrence Wharton Jr. was prepping Henrietta for treatment he took two samples from her one from the tumor and one from her healthy cervix. He never asked Henrietta if he could take these samples from her. Dr. Wharton Jr. took the samples down to Dr. Gey’s lab; he got excited but thought the cells would just die like all the rest.The women in the lab cut the cancer cells, placed them in test tubes, and placed them in the incubator. The next morning the women noticed that there was growth in the test tubes, Henrietta’s cells were growing at a great speed, they doubled over night. That day she cut the cell in half and those two halves grew overnight. Every 24 hours the cells where growing like crabgrass. It seemed like her cancer cells where unstoppable, as long as they had food and warmth. Because of their adaption to growth in tissue cultures plates, HeLa cells are difficult to grow.In 1952, researchers injected HeLa cells into everything, from mumps to herpes. That year was the worst year of the polio epidemic they used Hela cells to test the vaccine that protected millions. Hela cells made it possible to grow the virus, so they could make a vaccine to fight it. Dr. Gey and his colleagues went on to develop a test, using HeLa cells, to distinguish between the many polio strains, some of which had no effect on the human body. Until researchers knew which strain-produced, polio's crippling effects some of which had no effect on the human body.Until researchers knew which strain produced polio's crippling effects, they did not know what they were fighting. Through Henrietta's cells, they found their culprit. With this information, researchers in Pittsburgh created a vaccine, and the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis established facilities for mass-producing the HeLa cells. They would use them to test the polio vaccine before its use in humans. During this time, the scientists come up with a way to send cell through the mail without killing them. Due to a laboratory accident involving HeLa cells scientists in Texas were able to see human chromosomes for the first time.Henrietta’s cells have helped us find and many things over the last 50 years. In 1954, thanks to the cells scientists came up with a method that kept an isolated single cell alive long enough for it to replicate and make a perfect copy of them. That is how we discovered gene therapy, in vitro fertilization, and stem cell isolation. In the 1960’s they packed some HeLa cells into a soviet satellite and sent them into space, this discovered that cancer cells grow faster in space. Later NASA listed the HeLa cells were in the first manned US mission in space.By the mid 1960’s they found that if y ou mixed Hela cells with mouse cells it created the first cross-species helped prove that human papillomavirus causes cancer, and they made a vaccine to help prevent it, this could have saved Henrietta’s life it was available then. A few years later, they inject HIV into the HeLa cells to try to find the key receptor in this virus. Thanks to the HeLa cells, scientists have been able to find cures, vaccines, and help to many types of viruses. hybrid, and that helped with mapping human genes. They also discovered Herceptin, a cancer drug, with the help of the Hela cells.In the 1970’s they used Hela to show the invasiveness of salmonella, and to study it inside the human cell. By 1984 with the help of HeLa cells they All my information was found at many sites here is the list of them. http://h2g2. com/dna/h2g2/A73516368 http://www. bbc. co. uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2010/06/the_undead_henrietta_lacks_and. html http://www. smithsonianmag. com/science-nature/Henrietta-Lacks-Immor tal-Cells. html http://www. virology. ws/2009/02/09/the-amazing-hela-cells-of-henrietta-lacks/ http://www. wired. com/magazine/2010/01/st_henrietta/ I also read the book â€Å"The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks† .