In 1951, a 31 year old black woman by the name of Henrietta Lacks went to Johns Hopkins University because of what she called a knot in her womb. Even back then Johns Hopkins was considered one of the best hospitals in the country, though that wasn't the reason Henrietta went there, rather it was because this was the 1950's and it was the only hospital in the area that would actually admit black people. The doctors at Johns Hopkins did the usual dog and pony show, including taking x-rays, which unfortunately for Henrietta revealed that she was just plain old fashioned riddled with cancer. Again, this being the 1950's, the doctors tried to treat the cancer by injecting her body with solid chunks of radium, which unfortunately did little to slow the diseases progress. Henrietta died just six months after her cancer was discovered. She was soon after buried in an unmarked grave because her family was poor as shit. What, you expected some kind of radiation created super power thing? Grow up buddy. This is the real world.
Anyways, unbeknownst to Henrietta, or any members of her family, the doctors at Johns Hopkins took a sample of her cancer cells and gave it to a researcher by the name of George Gey who was doing some kind of medical science research project that is far too boring to go into here. However, it was during this research that Dr. Gey discovered that Henrietta's cancer cells were very unique. You see, at the time medical research was pretty much at a standstill because it was hard as shit to perform experiments on human cells, you know, other than fucking around with the cells of living people. At best, cells cultured outside the body lived only for a couple of days, making it impossible to do extensive testing on the same sample, something that is pretty damn important when it comes to pushing forward scientific progress. Henrietta's cancer cells were different in that not only were they replicating themselves endlessly outside the body, in effect making them immortal, they were also doing it at an astoundingly fast rate. Dr. Gey, being a rather clever fellow, recognized instantly what he had and the fantastical opportunities it created.
Now normally in such a story, this would be the part where the discoverer of such an amazing phenomenon patents the shit out of some cancer cells in order to make billions of dollars. However, luckily for all of us, Dr. Gey was not one of these asshats. Rather than sell his discovery, he began producing as many of Henrietta's cells (called HeLa cells) as possible, and shipping them out for free to medical researchers around the world. One of these researchers was a dude named Jonas Salk, who used the HeLa cells to create the polio vaccine in 1953. It was kind of a big deal given that at the time polio killed or paralyzed half a million people a year. That same year other researchers used HeLa cells to create the first ever successful clone of a human cell. These two monumental advancements were just the tip of the iceberg. The discovery of the HeLa cell kicked cancer research into high gear. HeLa cells were also used in research about countless viruses (including AIDS), how radiation and toxins effect the body, and even the mapping of the human genome. Today, over 20 tons of HeLa cells have been produced, leading to over 60,000 scientific papers and nearly 11,000 patents. No other single medical discovery in history has led to such a great leap forward for humankind.
Of course, given the importance of this discovery, you’ve probably already guessed that Henrietta’s five children had no idea any of this shit was going on, because again, nobody ever told them that samples of Henrietta’s cancer cells had been kept. This total lack of knowledge was probably why they were so surprised and confused in 1975 when random medical researchers started contacting them asking for blood samples. However, even given such a strange event, nobody in the family really asked any questions. The whole thing didn’t become clear to the Lacks family until much later when a few family members overheard a dinner party conversation regarding the origin of the HeLa cells, which has to be by far one of the worst ways to find out your relative has become the immortal queen of medical research. Unsure of what the hell they were supposed to do about any of it, the Lacks family just kind of went with it until researchers started publishing family medical records in 1990, at which point they sued. Unfortunately for them, but luckily for the rest of us, the court ruled that discarded cells cannot be claimed as property. Though decidedly a moral gray area, Henrietta continues to live on to this day, and we are all the better for it.
Image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks#/media/File:Henrietta_Lacks_(1920-1951).jpg