Henrietta’s cells help in fight against cancer 60 years after her death

Five years ago — May 29, 2010 — a headstone donated by Dr Roland Pattillo was placed by a family on the grave of their mother: ‘In loving memory of a phenomenal woman, wife and mother, who touched the lives of many. Here lies Henrietta Lacks (HeLa). Her immortal cells will continue to help mankind forever. Eternal love and admiration. From your family.’

Rebecca Skloot’s 2009 book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, tells the story of a 31-year-old African-American married mother-of-five, who died of cancer in October, 1951, in Johns Hopkins hospital in Baltimore. Unknown to her family, some of her cancer cells were taken without her permission, before she died, and are used in the research of cancer. Her cells have been used in the trillions for medical research, since her death, as her family discovered in 1976, when media articles first discussed the identity of the person from whom the HeLa cells were taken. Her name, Henrietta Lacks, first appeared in a medical journal in December, 1971.

Her cells helped to make the polio vaccine. They have been used in medical research for 60 years and have contributed to five Nobel Prizes and 60,000 scientific articles.