Henrietta Lacks Research Papers

Who was Henrietta Lacks?

Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman. She was born in August 1, 1920 as Loretta Pleasant. Henrietta was born in Roanoke, Virginia. When Henrietta was four years old her mother died, right after giving birth to her tenth child. When her mom died, the family moved to Clover, Virginia. All the kids of the family were distributed among family relatives. Henrietta was with her grandfather. Henrietta started working as a tobacco farmer at an early age. When Henrietta was 14, she gave birth to her first child, Lawrence Lacks. 4 years later, she had another child, Elise Lacks. After she gave birth to her two children, she married her cousin, David Lacks. Soon Henrietta and David moved to Maryland. There they had more

They were used to test the first polio vaccine by Jonas Salk in the 1950s. Jonas observed that the HeLa cells were easily infected by poliomyelitis, which caused the infected cells to die. A very big volume of HeLa cells was needed for Jonas' polio vaccine testing. In 1953 spring, a culture factory was made at Tuskegee University to supply labs with HeLa cells. In 1953 HeLa cells were successfully cloned by Theodore Puck and Philip I Marcus at the University of Colorado, Denver. It was the first human cells to successfully be cloned. After that, HeLa cells have been used in various research. Some examples of research are cancer, AIDS, radiation effects, toxic substances effects, gene mapping, and many other scientific research. Today HeLa cells are still used for these researches, but mostly cancer research. In 2011, HeLa cells were used in tests of hepathine dyes, and other and other

Some of those implications are, that her grave wasn’t labelled until 2010, Henrietta or her family didn’t know that Henrietta’s cells were being used for research, and Henrietta’s family got no profit from Henrietta’s cells, even though they were being sold. In my opinion, I don’t think those things should have been done.

When Henrietta’s cells were taken she didn’t know about it. Two samples were taken. One of her diseased cervix and another of her not diseased cervix. When Henrietta died, her cells were a very big profit for the John Hopkins Hospital, but Henrietta’s grave wasn’t even labelled, and her family gained no profit from the HeLa cells. I think that’s very unethical. Henrietta’s family didn’t even know that HeLa cells were being sold all over the world until some years after they were taken. In 2010 Henrietta’s grave was labelled.

George Grey, the scientist who first grew the HeLa cells, was devoted to find a cure for cancer. He took his own cells and used them for research, he even took cells from his own kids to help him with his research. George never sold the HeLa cells and never even though of it. Equipment that he made could be sold for lots of money and some are still used today, but George never wanted to. He used his own stuff for himself, just to find a cure for