HeLa Cells, Part 1: Origins

The 1950’s was a time when ideas like patient consent didn’t exist, writes Rebecca Skloot in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. In fact:

“Many scientists believed that since patients were treated for free in public wards, it was fair to use them as research subjects as a form of payment.”

Johns Hopkins’ views on the topic were no different. So they used to pass on cells from their all too many black, indigent patients to researchers. Henrietta Lacks was one of their patients: black, indigent and with cervical cancer.

This was also an era when scientists had no way to grow/keep alive human cells in culture. Lacks’ cells came to a researcher named George Gey. Voila!

“(Her cells) were different: they reproduced an entire generation every twenty-four hours, and they never stopped. They became the first immortal human cells ever grown in a laboratory.”

Unlike other cells, which either didn’t grow at all, or only for a few generations.

Gey realized a possible use immediately: they would help in the study of cancerous cells, perhaps help in the search for ways to damage or destroy them:

“To help make that happen, Gey began sending Henrietta’s cells to any scientist who might use them for cancer research.”

Following convention, the cells came to be called by the initials of the person they came from: the HeLa cells. Everyone Gey sent them to could see their worth: they survived in culture, and they grew at “mythological” speed. Ergo:

“Those researchers gave them to more researchers, who gave them to still more.”

Soon the cells were used in research way beyond cancer. They were used to test cell reaction to “toxins, radiation and infections”. And injected into rats to understand immune suppression. And if the cells died in the process, well:

“Scientists could go back to their eternally growing HeLa stock and start over.”

Wait a minute. If HeLa cells were cancerous, did it make sense to use them as proxies for research of normal cells?

“Despite being cancerous, HeLa still shared many basic characteristics with normal cells: …they communicated with one another like normal cells… they expressed and regulated them… and they were susceptible to infections.”

Conversely, being cancerous cells had its advantages:

“HeLa cells grew much faster than normal cells, and therefore produced faster results. HeLa was a workhorse: it was hardy, it was inexpensive, and it was everywhere.”

All of this explains what came out from all the HeLa research.