The young woman who saved thousands of lives without knowing it

Few people in the history of medicine can say they have saved more lives than Harietta Lacks. A young black woman can be said to have made one of the greatest contributions to modern medicine without even knowing it.

Harietta Lacks was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1951, aged just 31, shortly after giving birth to her fifth child. In those days, many hospitals in the United States separated black and white patients, so there were few treatment options for her when she started having symptoms, according to bbc.com.

She went to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, because it was the closest to her home. The ward she was admitted to was in the same corridor as the office of George Gey, a researcher who has been creating and maintaining human cells in his laboratory for decades.

As the doctors tried to remove the woman’s tumor, a small tissue sample was sent to Gey without her knowledge.

Until then, his attempts to grow human cells were unsuccessful, but things were about to change.

In most people, a natural process called senescence limits the life of cells. The process is related to aging. As cells divide and multiply over time, the accuracy of the DNA, for each replica, decreases. Each strand of DNA has a protection at the end. When the strands are shortened, the protection is destroyed, the strands remain unprotected and thus mutations occur. These mutations lead to cancer or other age-related diseases. Normally, human cells divide about 50 times before reaching senescence.

Harietta Lacks’ cells were different. They split and replicated endlessly, so scientists around the world soon received Lacks’ cells for research.

His cell line, which became known as “HeLa”, is the most widely used cell line in medicine. Millions of people owe their lives. Its cells were used for the first polio vaccine, for anticancer drugs and for in vitro fertilization.

He never knew what he was doing. She was not asked for her consent and was not subsequently informed. It all came to light just 50 years later, when journalist Rebecca Skloot asked to analyze her DNA to find out where it came from.

The video in which Rebecca Skloot tells the whole story has become very well known.

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