Video of Memorial Ceremony of Henrietta Lacks

This video was shot at Turner Station, which is a neighborhood of Dundalk, Maryland, where Henrietta Lacks became a resident after moving from Clover, Virginia in 1942. The video shows the memorial ceremony for Henrietta Lacks held by the state of Maryland and presented by Maryland representative Senator Norman R. Stone Jr. (D). The video also features Henrietta's middle son, David "Sonny" Lacks, Henrietta's granddaughter, Jeri Lacks Whye, and her great granddaughter JaBrea Rodgers. They were all expressing the importance of Henrietta and Her cells towards science and how Henrietta is finally getting the recognition that she deserves. As JaBrea stated, HeLa cells are truly a "miracle."

Click on the link below to view the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VSObz9NSv4&feature=related

A.Fi and D-1 Re Cell Lines Overshadowed By HeLa Cell Line

While reading chapter 13 of Rebecca Skloot's "Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks," which discusses the sudden progress and growth of the field of cell/tissue culture after Henrietta Lacks' death; I happen to come across one intriguing paragraph. The paragraph states "... there were other cells to work with, including some he'd grown himself: A.Fi and D-1 Re... but they were harder to culture, so they never took off like Henrietta's cells" (Skloot, 2010, p.103). I found this very intriguing because I did not know that other continuous cell lines were grown by George Guy aside from HeLa Cells. I began to think that if these cells were just as efficient and as easy to culture as HeLa then the rate of progress in the field of Cell/Tissue culture as well as other fields in science would have been much faster and greater technological advances in fields such as molecular biology, genetics, virology, physiology, immunology, as well as biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, etc. would have been achieved sooner. I began to wonder, what made the A.Fi and D-1 Re harder to culture, when compared to the HeLa cell line, and how much they deviate to the conditions required for HeLa cell lines to grow (physiochemical environment, physiological conditions, microenvironment).

In order to determine the properties of both A.Fi and D-1 Re and the conditions they are required for them to be cultured, I started by searching for articles using various databases and low and behold I found Dr. George Gey's original November 1954 article from the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, titled "ACTIVITIES AND RESPONSES OF LIVING CELLS AND THEIR COMPONENTS AS RECORDED BY CINEPHASE MICROSCOPYAND ELECTRON MICROSCOPY." (Gey, Shapras, Borysko, 1954). The main objective of this article was to utilize a new technique (at the time) called cinephase microscopy to various cell cultures in order to monitor the growth, proliferation, and differentiation as well as make comparisons of the cell's composition and structure of various cell lines by. They were able to utilize:

A series of static images and short motion picture scenes were used to illustrate some of the similarities and differences in the structural organization and the behavior of various components of the

tumorous cell strain of the rat (T-333) derived in vitro from a normal fibroblast strain 1 4 ~ .C~ine phase studies were also made of the 23-year-old strain of human chondromyxosarcoma, strain D-1 Re; of the 15-year-old human fibrosarcoma, strain A.Fi.; and of the 3-year-old strain of human epidermoid carcinoma of the cervix, strain HeLa, when grown in thin tissue-culture slides (Gey, Shapras, Borysko, 1954).

This study allows one to actually visualize the physical difference between HeLa cells as well as the A.Fi., and D-1 Re cells, as well as determine the reason why they are difficult to culture compared to HeLa cells.

They monitored the development of pseudopodia in all cells as well as their increase in size and morphology using cinephase microscopy. When the T-333 strain was compared to the wild type rat cells once can see

that T-333 was:

(1) thicker; (2) to show a prominent ring of inclusion droplets distributed around the nucleus and juxtanuclear area; (3) to have a large juxtanuclear area so ridged as to bend the large polyploid nucleus found in many malignant cells...(4) to manifest increased feeding habits through abundant pinocytosis; and (5) to have a larger centrosphere in

the region shown by the arrow. Also, the tumor-cell derivatives show less cohesion of the cells of their colonies and fewer microfibrils (Gey, Shapras, Borysko, 1954).

The human cell lines HeLa, A.Fi., and D-1 Re cells displayed similar morphology as the T-333 cells and most importantly, mitochondrial distortion and size reduction is present in all tumorous cell lines, which can be used to determine the efficiency and ease of culture. One can see that in HeLa:

Within an

eight-minute period, inclusion droplet No. 1 engages mitochondrion No. 2, and su

cceeds in breaking it within three

minutes... At this time, it has moved a considerable

distance

and has now engaged a second mitochondrion, No. 3, and within

two minutes it stretches mitochondrion No. 3 to form two

broken fragments At the six-minute interval... it has already engaged a third mitochondrion No. 4 and may be seen to move still farther on its way toward the juxtanuclear mass. These events reveal the dramatic movement of such components within 10 minutes (Gey, Shapras, Borysko, 1954).

One can see on the A.Fi and the D-1 Re cells that the movement of components are slower which may indicate slower growth which is more difficult to culture. However, there are still other factors that are not elaborated upon in this study which may greatly contribute to the A.Fi an

D-1 Re's inability to be cultured at the level of HeLa. Even though I have not reached a definite conclusion, I was able to see what these cells look like, and it gave me an idea that it is very possible for other cells to be immortalized and used for cell cultures.

...........HeLa cells.................D-1 Re cells...............A.Fi cells

Atrocities

It amazes me how many atrocities took place during this timeline in the pursuit of cures. What is even more surprising is the justifications that accompanied them. Having to prey on a persons guilt and fear in order to get them to participate in a study would seem unethical in every sense. For example the prisoners that were injected with cancer agreed to the study because of the guilt from their crime. If the prisoners were to voluntarily agree to the study in order to further cancer research is one story but to prey on their guilt is another. Their justification for these experiments was that they , as criminals, should participate in the study as a reconciliation. Another is example is the countless events that were endured by the Lacks family. After Henrietta passed away doctors convinced Day to allow them conduct an autopsy in the hopes that it would help his children if they were one day to get the same cancer. Hsu then would return to gather blood from family, not to screen the family for the cancer but to identify markers that can be used to identify HeLA contamination. The only reason all of these atrocities took place was due to the lack of knowledge of their subjects. The people that they conducted research on were poor, black and most of them were illiterate.
The fear that was shown by the people of Baltimore during that time period really says something about the research being conducted at this time. During our early childhood most children are afraid of characters they saw in a a scary movie , these children were scared of a hospital. A hospital should signify a place that a person goes when in need of medical help, to these kids it was a scary place were you were taken to be experimented on by "night doctors". These people even had to worry about corpses being stolen from their grave by these researches. Its unbelievable to what length these researchers would go to test a theory.

FISH

I've always liked these images. It was interesting finding out that HeLa was also responsible for the development of this technique.

So much I did not know about Hela !!

History does teach us a lot ! Hela cells were used to find Polio vaccination, used to Tuskegee syphilis study, learned about spontaneous transformation. Not only scientists figured out how to freeze the cells, they were able to come up with the process of shipment cells and the standardize culture medium while keeping them alive and viable. When George Otto Gey first started, could he ever imagine how much is going to change in the history of science working on those cancerous cells collected from Henrietta's cervix?

Ripped Off

Very sad how the Lackes family was robbed of their rights to monetary compensation for Henrietta's cells. By now they would of been one of the wealthiest families in America, instead of the "Hiltons" it would be the "Lackes" . I can see why the family is angry, I would be too.

"Life" of Henrietta Lacks

I have recently finsihed the "Life" portion of the Henrietta Lacks book and I am blown away with how far science and technology has come in the past 60 years. I just couldn't believe that Gey built almost everything in his lab including his "air tight sterlie" room, it makes me wonder how sterlie those rooms actually were. I just couldn't imagine walking in to our tissue culture lab and seeing a sink made of stone or our incubator room made out of junkyard scraps. I also found interesting that in the book it says the biggest problem facing cell culture is contamination; even after all the advances science and technology have made, one of the biggest problems still facing cell culture is still contamination.
After reading this first section, I also have a better insight on why the public is so untrusting of scientists. After reading about all the different controversies that surrounded different scientific research, I know have a better understanding on why it takes so long for any type of research to be determined conclusive and beneficial for the general public.
I am really enjoying this book and I am looking forward to finishing it.

Justifications

Stem cells from breast milk.... maybe Dolly's?

Australian researchers have discovered that stem cells from breast milk can be cultivated into other cell types, including bone, fat, liver and brain cells. The cells could serve as an alternative to embryonic stem cells.

HeLa Cells on Vimeo

http://vimeo.com/9581140

Rebecca Skloot talks HeLa at UCLA

November 1, 8pm: Rebecca Skloot talks HeLa at UCLA
Rebecca Skloot will be at UCLA discussing her (fantastic) book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, followed by a book signing.

Skloot’s bestselling work—10 years in the making—was selected as the 2011-12 UCLA Common Book, given to every incoming freshman and transfer student, who will read and participate in related activities as part of intellectual community-building programs.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, her debut book, took more than a decade to research and write, and instantly became a New York Times best-seller. She has been featured on numerous television shows, including CBS Sunday Morning, The Colbert Report, Fox Business News, and others. Named a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Pick for Spring 2010 and awarded the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize for Nonfiction, The Immortal Life received widespread critical acclaim, with reviews appearing in The New Yorker, Washington Post, Science, Entertainment Weekly, People, and many others. Currently, The Immortal Life is being made into an HBO movie produced by Oprah Winfrey and Alan Ball.

Relevant Literature

I was actually a little bit late on finally purchasing the book, but now that I have I can't put it down. It is truly addicting. Rebecca Skloot did such an amazing job at capturing the different aspects of the life leading up to and the continuation of the HeLa cell line. My favorite thing about this book is that it is written in a manner that even without previous experience within the field of research and medicine anyone can appreciate this as a good read. Thus far with finishing the first part of the book it really makes me appreciate just how short of a time has passed in our country since the civil rights movement. To hear about things in a classroom setting and to read a descriptive narrative based in the time that doesn't seem that far away on a timeline but eons ago in an ethical stand point is quite sobering. It makes me have more of an appreciation for the views that my grandparents have that I myself find archaic. Also I was fascinated by the medical treatments of the time such as the pap smear just being developed and the manner in which Henrietta's cancer was treated with radium and also the differences in lab techniques. Overall I am thoroughly enjoying the book but my favorite aspect isn't even the book itself. I volunteer at St. Bernardine Medical Center when I have the time and I just wanted to comment on a Doctor I was speaking with this last Friday. I was telling him my goals and back story and he asked if I enjoyed reading. I told him I did and he recommended a few books for me to check out including "The Cry and the Covenant" which is a fictional depiction of Dr. Ignaz Semmelweiss in his attempts to popularize sterile technique prior to surgery, my next read. Then he asked me if I was currently reading anything and I told him that I was reading the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and he became excited because he too was currently reading it. It was just nice to have a more intellectual conversation with a professional as we divulged into the book for about thirty minutes analyzing what we'd read and what we knew as a back story and he told me of his own story as he actually attended medical school in 1954. This is probably one of my favorite projects I've had to do in college so far and it's nice to have something more in common with otherwise mildly intimidating professionals.

Eugenics

I was shocked to find out that Carrel was a eugenicist. Today, we regard eugenics as being widely unethical-- does that mean we don't allow people to experiment with the practice even though they might produce results that are greatly beneficial to science. (Should Carrel's experiments have been supported knowing his true intentions for doing them?)

Researchers Advance Cloning Of Human Embryos

http://www.npr.org/2011/10/05/141073036/researchers-advance-cloning-of-human-embryos

In the name of science

http://www.cellebritydocscalendar.com/

HeLa Blog

Just finished the first half of the book about Henrietta’s life and the author’s journey to discover the history behind the HeLa cells. I didn’t expect to learn about how racism existed even in the medical field and the extent to which African Americans were segregated. I did find it disturbing that Henrietta was unaware of the sample the doctors took of her cervix. Since she was being treated for free by John Hopkins Hospital they felt that it was fair to conduct research on her as a form of payment. It is crazy to think that her cells are immortal and that gives me a greater appreciation for their use in research. The author also talks about the Tuskegee syphilis study in which the infection was allowed to infect African American men until they died from it. It makes you think about the ethical issues and to what extent are we willing to go in order to advance medicine.

World Stem Cell Summit

At Pasadena from the 3rd to the 5th.
Excited to attend, even more excited to have two of the CIRM scholars present posters...