In October of this year, Henrietta Lacks day, which falls in Black History Month, marked the centennial year of her birth (#HELA100).1 This year has also seen the Black Lives Matter movement gain vigour, making now the right time to explore the lady whose cancer cells would, unknowingly, change the course of biomedical research and policy profoundly.
Henrietta Lacks was 29 when she first noticed signs of cancer. Then, four months after childbirth, she haemorrhaged and went to John Hopkins Hospital - one of the few places that treated African-American patients at the time. Subsequently, a large tumour was found on her cervix, and radiotherapy was started in 1951.2,3
At the time, consent was not required for medical research, and so cancer cells from Henrietta Lacks’ biopsy were taken to the laboratory of Dr George Gey. Scientists were competing to create a permanent human cell line, which had thus far failed. However, Henrietta Lack’s cancer cells were different: Unlike other human cells, which tend to only survive for a couple of days, these cells were durable and unusually fast-growing,4 which enabled Dr Gey’s assistant, Mary Kubicek, to succeed in cultivating a permanent cell line.5
Henrietta’s cancer treatment, at first, also appeared to succeed. However, she returned to Hopkins repeatedly with abdominal pains, but no recurrence was found until it was too late. Sadly, eight months after diagnosis, she passed away, leaving five children.2 By the time of her death, Henrietta Lacks’ (HeLa) cells had been immortalised and shared across the world. Her family, however, only came to discover this two decades later.4
HeLa cells were hoped to find the cure for cancer but soon had a hand in developing the Polio vaccine too. Polio had mainly affected African-Americans until an epidemic swept the US. Following which, funding allowed the development of new methods. Primate cells, used to multiply antibodies to study polio, did not multiply fast enough, which made HeLa cells a viable alternative to infect with the Poliovirus. By 1955, mass production and shipping of HeLa cells were underway.6 Since then, HeLa cells have been widely used across research, from understanding tuberculosis to HIV and even visiting outer space. More recently, research with HeLa cells led to Nobel prizes for advances in microscopy and telomeres.7
The Lacks family came to know about the use of HeLa cells in 1973. The next decades brought the press to their doors, and a BBC documentary followed, revealing several key issues. Firstly, the lack of consent by Lacks’ family members for the use of Henrietta’s cells, which at the time was legal; and secondly, a failure to anonymise HeLa cells correctly and gain consent for naming the family publicly. As a result, the pressure to change policy is rising in the US, starting with gaining of consent before clinical samples are used in research, even if anonymised. In the long run, systemic change to reduce racism that played a part in these failures is required.1
In conclusion, the wrongs in history cannot be altered, but mistakes can be learnt from, and the future policies in science can still be changed for the better.
By Duvaraka Alwar
