Henrietta Lacks cells, also popularly dubbed HeLa cells by the medical community, are the cells that belonged to Miss Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman from Baltimore, USA. These were the cells of an aggressive cervical cancer she had suffered and eventually died from. These cells were found to be ‘immortal’, they could survive and replicate indefinitely. It was a property that Dr. George Otto Gey, the cell biologist who studied HeLa cells, had never seen before. He could foresee the many possibilities these cells could achieve, including cancer therapeutics, and was able to successfully generate a cell line from it, that would propel cell-based studies for many decades to come.
Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman who was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1951. While undergoing treatment for it at Johns Hopkins University, Maryland, Baltimore, her cell samples were taken and studied as a part of routine workup. After the discovery of its potential to aid in cancer research, it started circulating around major research laboratories in the US and quickly became popular. But her family came to know about this only after about 25 years, reflecting the controversies of informed consent and ethics issues of those times.
HOW DO THEY DO IT?
HeLa cells were found to have an extremely active version of an ‘enzyme’ called telomerase which slows down cell aging. They were also found to have varying chromosome numbers from the normal 46. In fact, it was a study on HeLa cells that allowed better visualization of chromosomes in cells that eventually led to the counting and characterization of normal human cell chromosomes.
GROUNDBREAKING ACHIEVEMENTS IN MEDICAL SCIENCE
From its discovery in 1951, the HeLa cells took a central role in many scientific discoveries with high societal impact. Some of them, are:
1. Development of Polio vaccine
2. Development of a novel method to stain and count chromosomes
3. Discovery of Human Papilloma virus-18 (HPV-18) as the causative organism in Cervical cancer
4. Studies on entry of SARS CoV-2019 into human cells using ACE-2 receptors
5. Studies on Anti- cancer drugs including Tamoxifen (Breast cancer drug)
6. Discovery of the enzyme Telomerase
7. Studies of the effect of Zero Gravity (outer space) on cells
About 11,000 patents involving HeLa cells exist today and biomedical giants continue to use it as a main tool in genomic research. While HeLa cells might have taken the world by storm over the years, they have also started taking over other cell cultures within laboratories. Since they have the ability to propagate through any surface and multiply indefinitely, contamination of other cell cultures with HeLa cells is a common issue nowadays. Many other continuous cell lines exist today like Hep-2 cells from laryngeal cancer, Vero cells from monkeys, KB cell line, etc.
Since the revealing of the identity of HeLa cells, the Lacks family has been actively involved in the decision-making regarding its use and propagation. However, they were never compensated for the use of their family’s genetic line with almost unrestricted access. Even recently, when the HeLa cell genome was decided to be put up in a public database, the family was consulted and a mutual agreement was arrived upon.
The Henrietta Lacks Foundation was established by Miss Rebecca Skloot, who is also the author of the critically acclaimed book,’ The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks’, which discusses the medicine, politics, and ethical concerns of the whole HeLa cell story. This foundation tries to give voice to people who unwittingly became part of research experiments that changed the world. It has awarded more than 80 grants to nearly 30 members of Henrietta Lacks’s immediate family. Members of the family are also involved in cancer outreach and awareness drives and were recently appointed as WHO Goodwill Ambassadors for the elimination of Cervical cancer.
The HeLa cells affair sparked debates on privacy and consent as well as ethical issues that the medical science community had conveniently ignored for many centuries, and has helped in bringing about major policy changes in matters of genetic material handling.
SOURCES:
1. Zhou P, Yang XL, Wang XG, Hu B, Zhang L, Zhang W, Si HR, Zhu Y, Li B, Huang CL, Chen HD, Chen J, Luo Y, Guo H, Jiang RD, Liu MQ, Chen Y, Shen XR, Wang X, Zheng XS, Zhao K, Chen QJ, Deng F, Liu LL, Yan B, Zhan FX, Wang YY, Xiao GF, Shi ZL. A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin. Nature. 2020 Mar;579(7798):270-273. doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2012-7. Epub 2020 Feb 3. Erratum in: Nature. 2020 Dec;588(7836):E6. PMID: 32015507; PMCID: PMC7095418.
2. Hudson KL, Collins FS. Biospecimen policy: Family matters. Nature. 2013 Aug 8;500(7461):141-2. doi: 10.1038/500141a. PMID: 23925224; PMCID: PMC5101952.
3. https://rebeccaskloot.com/the-immortal-life/henrietta-lacks-foundation/
4. https://www.who.int/news/item/16-10-2022-henrietta-lacks--family-appointed-world-health-organization-goodwill-ambassadors-for-cervical-cancer-elimination
5. https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2020/vessels-for-collective-progress-the-use-of-hela-cells-in-covid-19-research/
6. https://letstalkscience.ca/educational-resources/stem-in-context/why-henrietta-lacks-important
7. https://www.microbigals.com/post/hell-of-a-lot-of-hela-cells-the-life-and-legacy-of-the-immortal-black-women
(MSM)
