In 1950, Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman, wife and mother of five children, entered the public ward of Johns Hopkins University complaining of a “knot on her womb” (Skloot, 2010). Soon after, she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cervical cancer that took her life less than a year later. Unbeknownst to Lacks, however, a small part of her cancer tumor lived on. As was common practice at the time, Lacks' treating physician collected her human cell tissue without her permission or knowledge, labeled it “HeLa” using the initials of her first and last name, and stored her specimens in a laboratory where he was endeavoring unsuccessfully to grow an immortal line of cancer cells. For the first time in the laboratory (and possibly in history), these cancer cells multiplied and survived, creating a durable line of cell culture that the laboratory went on to share with anyone who asked for them (Skloot, 2010).
