Henrietta Lacks Research Paper

Since 1920, a scientist named George Gey, and his wife, Margaret Gey, had been working in their lab at Johns Hopkins to grow malignant cells outside of the body. They wanted to create the first immortal cells (continuously dividing lines of cells that would constantly replenish themselves and never die). What Henrietta and her family didn’t know, was that when a biopsy of her tumour was sent to the pathology lab, the tissue was never thrown out afterwards. After being looked at by a pathologist, Henrietta’s biopsy was then given to George Gey on February 8th, 1951. At Gey’s laboratory, one of the workers there named Mary Kubicek, placed cells obtained from Henrietta’s biopsy specimen into cell culture. Throughout the past years, Gey had been

In the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Henrietta the purpose of the book is to tell the story of Henrietta Lacks, her illness, and how she completely changed medicine. The speaker is the author, Rebecca Skloot a prolific freelance writer. The audience is a wide variety of readers, since the book is extremely popular and is now often taught in schools and universities. The subject is Henrietta Lacks, a woman who died of cervical cancer in 1951. and HeLa, the line of cells taken from Henrietta that were the first line of cells to reproduce and survive in the lab indefinitely.

The central idea of chapters 20 "The HeLa bomb" and 22, "The Fame she so richly deserves" is the truth behind HeLa, or the coming out of Henrietta Lacks, the owner of the HeLa cells. The first time Henrietta was identified in print for her belongings was during the journal Jones and his colleagues published, which read "The biopsy... has secured for the patient, Henrietta Lacks as HeLa, an immortality which has now reached 20 years." (Chapter 22, Page 173) Sadly, although Henrietta's name was published in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, Henrietta's name was not known to the common crowd until the War on Cancer. Where Russian scientists claimed to find the cancer virus in cells of Russian patients, however "...those cells weren't from

Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman who was born on August 1, 1920 in Roanoke, Virginia. She lived with her mother until the age of four and then she moved in with her uncle on a tobacco plantation after her death. While staying there she ended up sharing a room with her first cousin David “Day” Lacks, after sharing a room with him for many years, in 1935 Henrietta had their first child at the age of fourteen, they named him Lawrence, then, four years later they had their second child Elsie and then in 1941 they were married.

What if you had the ability to save several lives through something only you had ? Wouldn’t you like to be told and given proper credit? Well unfortunately that is not case for Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta held a powerful and significant key which has helped as a cure for many things and is still being used till this day . I choose to write about Henrietta due to the fact that she is one of histories and science unsung hero’s.

Henrietta Lacks was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Her doctor at Johns Hopkins hospital took her tissues without informing her and grew them. When she died her tissue became HeLa cells which became the key to science research creating vaccines and medications. Race In the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was exploited by the doctors. It was a major issue and the doctors took advantage of their patients to receive what they wanted. It left people like Henrietta and her family uninformed because blacks were forbidden to ask questions.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is about a poor African-American woman that died from cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1950, but in the end it turns into religion and spirituality. I know that there are many religions, but do not know much about religion and how it can affect people’s lives. The book also shows how Lack’s family believes in God, the struggle of Lack’s family with the creation of those cells, how the cells got used by people, and the sad part when Deborah wants to know who her mother was and the Lacks family could not afford a health insurance.

When I first began reading the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, written by Rebecca Skloot, I expected it to only be about the science behind HeLa cells, which I didn’t find particularly exciting. Except, I was proven very wrong. I have not been able to put this book down, for Rebecca Skloot is a remarkable writer who entices the reader with the emotional story of Henrietta Lacks and her family. It is true that there were quite a few scientific studies included within this book, but they never dampened the adventure. If anything the studies were integrated in such a way that I feel they were needed in order to understand all of the perspectives. Reading all of the scientific advancements made using HeLa cells left me happy, but also led me to question how justifiable it was. These researchers took Henrietta’s cells and used them without her even being aware of their actions. I believe the original intent of the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was to humanize and give Henrietta and her family credit for the advancement in science that her cells, the HeLa cells, contributed; thus leading me to my conclusion that the advancement in science using HeLa cells is not justifiable because of the harm inflicted on both the family and society.

In this semester’s book club, I have enjoyed the book called The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. This book describes a true and famous cell line in the medical research field, that is the first immortal cell line in the world, HeLa cells. Not until I finished reading this fantastic book, I know that the HeLa cells were taken from a cervical cancer patient, Henrietta Lacks, without letting her know the truth about using her cells in research, even though she died. What more surprising to me was that her family lived a hard life without health insurance while the researchers make many profits from developing HeLa cells, they were never informed about their family member’s devotion to the scientific research.

Bringing Henrietta to Life: Creating Dialogue on Disparities across Disciplines Henrietta Lacks was a woman who made an eye-opening breakthrough in medicine in the early 1950s. Her cells were the first immortal cells to be discovered which paved the way for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, in-vitro fertilization, and more. Unfortunately, there are two sides to every story. Although, modern medicine would not be where it is today without Hela cells, Henrietta’s family continued to struggle with her legacy because of the health disparities associated with ethics, race, and medicine. Henrietta’s cells were taken without her knowledge and used to cure various medical conditions.

This passage is interesting because Henrietta will be living forever, literally. There are over billions of cells of her. She has traveled the world in such a short time and also has been a part of nearly every new medical vaccine or cure there will ever be. It just goes to show you how science works. One person can change everything.

As both Americans and people, our rights are limited and regulated by those in command. The enforcement of these regulations of just treatment is, unfortunately, more severe or less severe depending on race, gender, and wealth. Since the beginning of the United States, the oppression of people of color was present to the strongest extent. White, Europeans arrived in the Americas and looked at the people of color as beings brought to serve them. We forced them to work and when the Native people died out, the Europeans brought in African Americans as their new slaves in the 1700s. Since then, even though they fought to abolish slavery and for their rights, our country continues to treat them differently. This was the case of Henrietta Lacks,

What if Henrietta’s story appeared in the mainstream in 1951, instead of 1976? Would it help her case? Or would anyone care because of the color of her skin? Everyone’s point of view of African Americans were very different in 1951 from in 1976. The public interpretation would be very different if publishing Henrietta’s story in 1951 because of the changes like Jim Crow Laws, segregation, and if Rebecca Skloot would even be allowed to interview the Lacks family as much as she did.

My interpretation of his work is the lady is in distress and anxiety is slightly obvious. The reasons for my interpretation, is the use of the dark background while the blotches of red scattered on her face and shoulders. My first impression of this artwork by Francis Bacon, was the uniqueness of the curves and unusual distortions of the facial features. The artwork is from one of his series of portraits he painted of his close friends. This particular portrait painting is of Henrietta Moraes, who was a close friend and drinking companion of Francis' from the early 1960s. The ideas in this artwork is to capture the different aspects of her appearance and to reveal her as in the 'most elemental state'. Feelings such as the sense of chaos and

In the example with the HeLa cells, a great debate was raised when the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was published. The debate centered around the lack of information of where the cells came from, who should have known about the original harvesting, and the lack of compensation for Henrietta’s family once the cells started generating income. Also discussed was the tendency of the medical community to