The Extraordinary Story of HeLa Cells: Could She Have Lived Forever?

[leroyjenkens]

I just read this article and began wondering if the woman hadn't died from cancer, would she have lived forever?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa

 

[zomgwtf]

I just read this article and began wondering if the woman hadn't died from cancer, would she have lived forever?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa

Negative. HeLa cells came from the cancer and AFAIK they aren't even human. These cells are what killed her, not made her immortal. If a person 'had these' cells in them they too would die. They would just out compete your human cells.

 

[Andy Resnick]

AFAIK they aren't even human.

HeLa cells are definitely of human origin. As a matter of fact, many *other* cells lines turned out to be thoroughly contaminated by HeLa cells:

http://www.atcc.org/ATCCAdvancedCatalogSearch/ProductDetails/tabid/452/Default.aspx?ATCCNum=CCL-2.2&Template=cellBiology

http://www.atcc.org/CulturesandProducts/CellBiology/MisidentifiedCellLines/tabid/683/Default.aspx

 

[zomgwtf]

HeLa cells are definitely of human origin. As a matter of fact, many *other* cells lines turned out to be thoroughly contaminated by HeLa cells:

http://www.atcc.org/ATCCAdvancedCatalogSearch/ProductDetails/tabid/452/Default.aspx?ATCCNum=CCL-2.2&Template=cellBiology

http://www.atcc.org/CulturesandProducts/CellBiology/MisidentifiedCellLines/tabid/683/Default.aspx

Really? From what I've read on them (little admittedly) they aren't human cells due to them being largely aneuploid.

Thanks for links though .

276$, maybe I should buy some.

 

[alxm]

There was an interesting book on the history of HeLa that came out recently, also an interesting http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123232331" .

zomgwtf: That sounds like a strange criteron.. Aren't people with Down syndrome humans?

 

[leroyjenkens]

Negative. HeLa cells came from the cancer and AFAIK they aren't even human. These cells are what killed her, not made her immortal. If a person 'had these' cells in them they too would die. They would just out compete your human cells.

Are her cancer cells any indication that her normal cells were anything special?

 

[Andy Resnick]

There was an interesting book on the history of HeLa that came out recently, also an interesting http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123232331" .

I agree, it's a fascinating story. We spent a recitation period last year discussing Henrietta Lacks,the ethical issues that surround HeLa cells, and their initial collection. Not to mention the lack of renumeration/recognition due her family.

 

[ViewsofMars]

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

Women's History Month: Writing Women Back into History
Henrietta Lacks
(1920-1951)
Henrietta Lacks, who lived in Maryland, did not know that she or her cancer cells would become famous when diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1951. Her cells (named HeLa) are known and used world-wide today to help find answers through scientific and medical research. Use of HeLa cells has lead to advancements in polio vaccine development, cancer, herpes, Parkinson's disease, and more.

Today, cervical cancer is highly preventable in most Western countries because screening tests and a vaccine to prevent human papilloma virus (HPV) infections are available. When cervical cancer is found early, it is highly treatable and associated with long survival and good quality of life.

CDC's National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program (NBCCEDP) provides access to breast and cervical cancer screening services to underserved women in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, five U.S. territories, and 12 tribes.
http://www.cdc.gov/Features/WomensHistory/

Med Sci (Paris). 2010 May;26(5):529-33.
[Requiem for henrietta.]
[Article in French]
Gilgenkrantz S.
S. Gilgenkrantz : 9, rue Basse, 54330 Clérey-sur-Brénon, France.
Abstract
Fifty years after Henrietta Lacks died of aggressive glandular cervical cancer, the first cell line - HeLa cell line - is the workhorse of laboratories everywhere. It helped to produce drugs for numerous diseases, including poliomyelitis, Parkinson's, leukemias. But they are so outrageously robust that they contaminated hundred of other cell lines, as far away as Russia. For decades, biologists worked with contaminated cell lines and today, the problem is not yet solved. But the story of HeLa cells is also a moving reflection of racial and ethical issues in medicine in the late half-twentieth century in the USA.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/e...ez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

Arch Pathol Lab Med. 2009 Sep;133(9):1463-7.
Henrietta Lacks, HeLa cells, and cell culture contamination.
Lucey BP, Nelson-Rees WA, Hutchins GM.
Department of Neurology, Michael O'Callaghan Federal Hospital, Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada 89191, USA.
Abstract
Henrietta Lacks died in 1951 of an aggressive adenocarcinoma of the cervix. A tissue biopsy obtained for diagnostic evaluation yielded additional tissue for Dr George O. Gey's tissue culture laboratory at Johns Hopkins (Baltimore, Maryland). The cancer cells, now called HeLa cells, grew rapidly in cell culture and became the first human cell line. HeLa cells were used by researchers around the world. However, 20 years after Henrietta Lacks' death, mounting evidence suggested that HeLa cells contaminated and overgrew other cell lines. Cultures, supposedly of tissues such as breast cancer or mouse, proved to be HeLa cells. We describe the history behind the development of HeLa cells, including the first published description of Ms Lacks' autopsy, and the cell culture contamination that resulted. The debate over cell culture contamination began in the 1970s and was not harmonious. Ultimately, the problem was not resolved and it continues today. Finally, we discuss the philosophical implications of the immortal HeLa cell line.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/e...ez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

Submitted to: European Study Group of Picornavirus-Korpilampi-Finland
Publication Type: Abstract
Publication Acceptance Date: November 1, 2006
Publication Date: November 26, 2006
Citation: Baxt, B. 2006. Picornavirus Molecular Pathology - Translating 50 Years of Molecular Biology to the Host. European Study Group of Picornavirus (EUROPIC) November 26, 2006. P. D1.
Technical Abstract: In 1951 a resident at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, removed cancerous cells from the cervix of Henrietta Lacks and brought them to George Gey, the head of tissue culture research at Hopkins. Gey thought he could use these cells to study cancer in vitro. Eight months later Henrietta Lacks died from cervical cancer, and on the day of her death Gey announced the generation of a cell line, he called HeLa, that would aid in the fight against cancer. While Gey never realized that dream, he found that HeLa cells would grow poliovirus to very high titers, allowing the production of a vaccine and the study of virus replication. Thus, the era of picornavirus molecular biology began. In the last 55 years we have seen an enormous growth of knowledge of the mechanisms of picornaviruses infection and replication in cells in culture. While this large group of RNA viruses has similar genomic and capsid structure, they cause of a wide variety of disease syndromes in both humans and animals. This review will examine our current knowledge of how some of these viruses interact with their host species and cause disease. We will also examine the role of the viral structural and non-structural proteins, as well as the role of host proteins in viral pathogenesis.
http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/Publications.htm?seq_no_115=200370

 

[Jim1138]

Take a Human genome. Add one or more HPV genomes. Scramble. Evolve. The chromosomes are recognizably human. Some argue HeLa is a new species. Well evolved for infecting and out-competing other cell lines. HeLa is often not allowed in labs.

 

[Moonbear]

Are her cancer cells any indication that her normal cells were anything special?

No. Her cancer cells were special only because it was new technology for the time. One of the issues today with cell lines like that is that they've gone through so many passages that the cell lines don't even necessarily behave like the originals; in other words, additional mutations have evolved along the way. There is value to trying something out for the first time on a cell line rather than a living organism in terms of ethical considerations, but those findings also have to be interpreted with extreme caution because those cell lines are NOT behaving like normal cells in an organism just by nature of being immortalized.