SOCI 138 Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Henrietta Lacks, Baltimore County, Maryland, Hela
Document Summary
The politics of human samples samples to work with. Human genetics, like many other fields of biomedical research, needs human. Can science and/or the public good trump the right to control a (former) part of. Who innovates the person who provided the sample or the research who identifies. Henrietta lacks (1920-51) and her immortal cancer cells. Grew up in virginia in the former slave quarters of a plantation once owned by her great grandfather (and great uncle) Shared a room with her cousin, david. In 1941 henrietta and david married and moved to baltimore county, md. In january 1951, after feeling a lump, she went to john hopkins and was diagnosed with cervical cancer. She died in october of that year. But first two tissue samples were taken without her permission"one of these was cultured and turned in to the first ever immortal cell line. Hela cells became one of the most important tools in biology and genetics.
