Only one known case exists of a human having immortal cells (cells that can indefinitely divide outside the human body, surpassing the Hayflick Limit), and it is attributed to a woman named Henrietta Lacks.
In 1951, a 31-year-old named Henrietta Lacks received a diagnosis of cervical cancer, which ultimately took her life within the year. Unbeknownst to her and her family (without any informed consent), a surgeon extracted a tissue sample from her tumor, which was then handed over to Dr. George Gey. Gey, a scientist working at the John Hopkins University Tissue Culture Laboratory, succeeded in propagating Lacks’ tissue sample into what became known as the immortal HeLa cell line.
Lacks’ tumor cells possess an active form of the telomerase enzyme (telomerase is the factor influencing cellular aging) and they reproduce at an unusually rapid rate. On the very day that Henrietta Lacks passed away, Dr. Gey proclaimed to the world that a new era in medical research had begun—one that could potentially lead to a cancer cure.
In 1954, HeLa cells played a crucial role in Jonas Salk’s development of the polio vaccine. Since that time, they have been instrumental in studies on cancer, AIDS, radiation impacts, toxic substances, and in the mapping of genes, among numerous other applications.
Currently, HeLa cells are so prevalent in laboratories that they often contaminate various other cell cultures, compromising some biological studies due to their presence. In fact, there are now more HeLa cells in existence than when Henrietta Lacks was living—outnumbering her physical mass by a substantial margin.
Sadly, Lacks remained unaware of the significant contributions her cells made to science, and her family only learned many years later that her cells were being used in research. A court ruling in 1990 later confirmed that Lacks’ hospital held ownership over her discarded tissues and cells.
