Page 58 - All About History - Issue 53-17

Hero or Villain?
GEORGE O
JOHN DEETTO GEY

HeLa cells stained with fluorescent
markers. Blue shows the DNA-
containing nuclei

Henrietta Lacks’ cells are still Henrietta Lacks died in 1951 and
growing in labs across the world sparked a medical revolution

organs in the maternity ward at the hospital. The couple poured over the lists of operations carefully sliced the sample into cubes, dropped a
Whenever a sample became available, a buzzer at the hospital, looking for opportunities to scrub few into each tube with the nutrient broth and set
would sound and Margaret would rush over to up, enter theatre and collect cancer tissue to put them rolling. No one held out much hope for their
collect it. into their tubes. Margaret was a surgical nurse survival, but in the quiet of the drum, the cells
To this, the pair would add the crushed by training. But, time after time, cells that started to divide. One became two, two became
remains of a cow embryo, courtesy grew vigorously inside patients four, four became eight, and at the edges of each
of the local slaughterhouse, withered and died in the lab cube, tendrils of new tissue began to form.
its innards providing a rich without giving up any of their Every 24 hours, a new generation of cells
mixture of molecules on Defining secrets. For decades, the sputtered into existence and, within a few days,
which the cells could feed. moment pair meticulously tended there were so many that the samples had to be
As an extra source of Growing immortal cells to their experiments, but removed, cut up and split into more glass vials to
nutrients and support, Dr Ward Coffman sends George and his team none lived longer than a make room. Week after week there were more cells.
the cells were provided a tissue sample from a patient with cervical few months. At last, George and Margaret had achieved their
with a clot of chicken cancer — 31-year-old Henrietta Lacks. They On 9 February 1951, dream. They had made an immortal cell line — a
place the samples into their tubes and within
blood, drawn from days the cells start to grow. They continue everything changed. factory for producing living human cells — and they
birds at a local poultry to divide and divide, becoming the world’s Richard Telinde, a wanted to share it.
farm. Most survived the first immortal cell line. This breakthrough professor of gynaecology George mentored junior researchers in the art
donation, and those that forms the foundation of modern at Johns Hopkins Hospital, of cell culture and he sent vials of cells to other
medical science, but Henrietta
didn’t were paid for and her family never knew. had heard about George’s labs so that they could start growing their own.
and eaten. 1951 work. He wanted to try to They survived trips by road, rail and air, travelling
The final component was a grow cells from the cervix in through the post and in pockets and backpacks,
whirling drum that turned once an the rolling tubes, and his assistant and soon they were multiplying in incubators
hour to slosh the liquid over the cells, resident, Dr Ward Coffman, set about across the world. And then the breakthroughs
allowing them to pick up nutrients and discard collecting samples. George assigned a junior started coming.
waste as though blood and tissue fluid were technician, 21-year-old Mary Kubicek, to the project. In Pittsburgh, Jonas Salk had developed a
passing inside the body. George made this too, It was a Friday lunchtime when George put a vaccine for polio. During the early part of the 20th
using the pendulum from a clock to keep time. small lump of tissue onto Mary’s lab bench. She century, major epidemics had been sweeping across
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