BIOL3108 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Human Papillomavirus Infection, Henrietta Lacks, Hela
Document Summary
Death takes place because a worn-out tissue cannot forever renew itself, and because a capacity for increase by means of cell division is not everlasting but finite august weissmann, biologist, 1881. Henrietta lacks cervical cancer cells dividing in culture since 1951. Cell immortality is illustrated most dramatically by hela cells. Hela cells were derived in 1951 from an unusual, particularly aggressive cervical adenocarcinoma discovered in henrietta lacks, a young woman in baltimore, maryland, who soon died from the complications of this tumour. Ever since that time, these cells have proliferated in culture in hundreds of laboratories across the world, dividing approximately once a day. Hela cells constitute a cell line, in that they have become established in culture and can be passaged indefinitely. This contrasts with many cell populations that have a limited replicative ability after being removed from living tissue. Biomedical research milestones using hela cover the past 70 years. Major insights into behaviour of immortal human cells.
