Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Cancer Research: The Good and bad.

HeLa cells, easily the most cultured human cells ever.  They are cancer cells that come from Henrietta Lacks and African American woman, mother of 5 who died of cervical cancer (aged 31) in 1951.  Her cells have helped advance cancer research immensily.  Not to mention that her cells also helped to make the Polio vaccine.  Still many lines of research are done on her cells. 

A few interesting things about her though.  They say her cells are perhaps the most aggresive growing cells they've even seen.  From the sounds of it, after Henrietta got cancer, she had no real chance of survival.

Also, they were taken without consent.

And her family found out about it 24 years after her death.

I find it interesting as of this article (2000) her family didn't have health coverage.  Not surprising though.




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ሰላም  ዮሃንስ

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