By Doreen Guan

(Henrietta Lacks as provided by her family.)

In this present society, the idea of an immortal human being is thought to be impossible—a young, creative dream of a child who reads too many comic books. But what if it is not as impossible as it seems? What if there is someone out there who is immortal and is able to live on forever? Even though immortality is limited to creatures like jellyfish, the HeLa cell line is the closest humanity has ever gotten to living forever.

Having been discovered in 1951, HeLa (picture below) is a strain of immortalized cells used widely in scientific research that has been rightfully named after the woman from whom we obtained them.

Henrietta Lacks was a 31-year-old African American mother of five who was diagnosed with cervical cancer and treated at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She received treatment for 9 months before ultimately being unable to fight her cancer any longer, passing away on October 4, 1951 (Singh 2025). However, Dr. George Otto Gey, the director of the Tissue Culture Laboratory at Johns Hopkins Hospital, was given samples of her cancerous tissue without her consent, and through her cell biopsy, discovered something amazing. Gey discovered that, unlike other cancer cells, Lacks’ cells did not die after a couple of divisions but were able to keep doubling every 20-24 hours, even though the cells were no longer part of a body. With this new discovery, Gey cultured the cells and was able to create the first cell line of immortal cells, and they were named after the first two letters of Henrietta Lacks’ name: HeLa. (Cytion, n.d.)

HeLa cells are quite easy to culture and duplicate. They are consistently in active telomerase form, which allows them to overcome the Hayflick limit—the maximum number of divisions an average cell can go through—and continue to divide and be the immortal cell line they are known as. With a diameter of only 10-20 µm, these tiny cells, which seem like all others to the untrained eye, were used by scientists from all around the globe to conduct experiments while making groundbreaking scientific discoveries in the subject of biomedicine. Having aided in the research of cancer, the polio vaccine, AIDS, the effects of radiation and toxins, gene mapping, cloning (Minetti 2024), and even being used to help develop the COVID-19 vaccine during the 2020 pandemic (Blood Cancer UK, 2023), Henrietta Lacks’ immortal cells have been so incredibly significant to the scientific community as well as the millions of lives they have helped saved.

Although HeLa has been used for so much good throughout history with its contributions to medicine, there still exists a controversy surrounding whether it really is ethical to use it in the first place. They were taken from Lacks without her permission, and—while biotech companies profited off of them—her family remained oblivious and in poverty, unable to afford health insurance while Henrietta Lacks and her cells were key parts of countless scientific breakthroughs. From Henrietta Lacks’ case, the topic of ethics in medicine arose, which caused reforms to be made. This is why in the present time, new laws are put in place in which signed or verbal consent is needed before things like cells or tissues are taken from a human body, which was not that important when HeLa was taken from Lacks (Singh 2025).

In conclusion, though humanity still has a long way to go before we reach something like immortality, HeLa fits the label while being one of the pillars in medical discoveries. Just as HeLa is important in research, it is also important to acknowledge Henrietta Lacks and her family’s story and not brush over it as a “sacrifice for the greater good.”

References:

HeLa Cells: Revolutionizing Research. (n.d.). Cytion. Retrieved August 1, 2025, from
https://www.cytion.com/us/Knowledge-Hub/Cell-Line-Insights/HeLa-Cell-Line-Revolutionizing
Research/

Minetti, E. T. (2024, January 26). Ethical Challenges in Medical Research: Henrietta Lacks and
     the HeLa Cell Line. AWIS. Retrieved August 1, 2025, from
https://awis.org/resource/ethical-challenges-medical-research-henrietta-lacks-hela-cell-line/

Singh, H. (2025, August 1). Who was Henrietta Lacks? The Only Person with
     Immortal Cells. Jagran Josh. Retrieved August 1, 2025, from
https://www.jagranjosh.com/us/explainers/henrietta-lacks-hella-cells-1860000662

The stolen legacy of Henrietta Lacks. (2023, October 24). Blood Cancer UK. Retrieved August 1,
    2025, from https://bloodcancer.org.uk/news/the-stolen-legacy-of-henrietta-lacks/