Henrietta Lacks

Henrietta Lacks
Henrietta Lacks circa 1945–1950
Born	August 18, 1920(1920-08-18) (?) Roanoke, Virginia
Died	October 4, 1951 (aged 31) Baltimore, Maryland
Occupation	Housewife
Spouse(s)	David Lacks I (1915–2002)
Children	Deborah Lacks Pullum, David Lacks II, Lawrence Lacks, and Zakariyya Lacks
Parents	Eliza (1886–1924) and John Randall Pleasant I (1881–1969)

Henrietta Lacks (August 18 (?), 1920 – October 4, 1951) was the involuntary donor of cells from her cancerous tumor, which were cultured by George Otto Gey to create an immortal cell line for medical research. This is now known as the HeLa cell line.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Later life 3 Legacy 4 Further reading 5 References

Early life

She was born as Henrietta Pleasant on August 18 (?), 1920 in Roanoke, Virginia to Eliza (1886–1924)^[1] and John Randall Pleasant I (1881–1969).^[2][3][4] Eliza died giving birth to her tenth child in 1924. Sometime after his wife's death, John Pleasant took the children back to where their relatives on their mother's side lived, and where they were raised. John worked as a brakeman on the railroad.^[5]

Later life

Henrietta Pleasant married David Lacks I (1915–2002) in Halifax County, Virginia. After convincing David to go north to search for work, Henrietta followed in 1943, with her children. David found work at the Sparrow's Point shipyards and found a house for them on New Pittsburgh Avenue in Turners Station, now a part of Dundalk, Baltimore County, Maryland. This community was one of the largest and one of the youngest, if not the youngest, of the approximately fifty historically African American communities in the state of Maryland.

The couple had five children: Deborah Lacks (born 1948), who married a Pullum; David Lacks II; Lawrence Lacks; Zakariyya Lacks; and another daughter. Henrietta's last child was born at Johns Hopkins Hospital in November 1950.

On February 1, 1951, just days after a march for a cure for polio in New York City, according to Michael Rogers of the Detroit Free Press and Rolling Stone Magazine, Henrietta Lacks visited Johns Hopkins Hospital because of a vaginal discharge. That day, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. She was treated but died on October 4, 1951 at the age of thirty-one. Mrs. Lacks was buried without a tombstone in a family cemetery in Lackstown.

Lackstown is located in the city of Clover in Halifax County, Virginia. Lackstown is the name of the land that has been held by the Lacks' family since they received it from the family whom they were slaves and descendants of. "Lax" was at first the name of this family, which later used "Lacks". Henrietta Lacks' mother has the only tombstone of the five graves in the family cemetery in Lackstown.^[6][7]

Legacy

Henrietta Lacks has been recognized as an unintentional, yet important contributor to science, research, medicine and public health. Her contributions, which began almost immediately after her February 1, 1951 trip to Johns Hopkins Hospital, continue to this day. According to reporter Michael Rogers, her visit and the subsequent development of HeLa by a researcher at the hospital, helped answer the demands of 10,000 who marched for a cure to polio just a few days before. By 1954 HeLa was used by Jonas Salk to develop a vaccine for polio. As stated by reporter Van Smith in 2002 a "demand" for HeLa "quickly rose ... the cells were put into mass production and traveled around the globe--even into space, on an unmanned satellite to determine whether human tissues could survive zero gravity".

Reporter Smith continued, "In the half-century since Henrietta Lacks' death, her ... cells ... have continually been used for research into cancer, AIDS, the effects of radiation and toxic substances, gene mapping, and countless other scientific pursuits". HeLa was used to test human sensitivity to tape, glue cosmetics, and many other products.

In 1996 Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, and the mayor of Atlanta recognized the late Henrietta Lacks' family for her posthumous contributions and for their sacrifices. Her life is commemorated annually by Turners Station. A Congressional resolution in her honor was presented by Robert Ehrlich following soon after the first commemoration of her, her family, and cells named HeLa. ^[8]

In 1998, "Modern Times: The Way of All Flesh", the documentary on Mrs. Lacks and HeLa directed by Adam Curtis, won the Best Science and Nature Documentary at the San Francisco International Film Festival. Immediately following this film's airing in 1997, an article on HeLa, Mrs. Lacks, and her family was published by reporter Jacques Kelly in the Baltimore Sun. Since the 1950s news on Mrs. Lacks and on HeLa has been and continues to be published throughout the world in newspapers, magazines, and in scientific journals, books, and other academic publications. In the 1990s the Dundalk Eagle published the first article on her in a newspaper in Baltimore City and Baltimore County, and it continues to announce upcoming local commemorative activities. The Lacks family was also honored at the Smithsonian Institution. In 2001 it was announced that the National Foundation for Cancer Research would be honoring "the late Henrietta Lacks for the contributions made to cancer research and modern medicine" on September 14th. Because of the events of September 11, 2001 the date for honoring her was changed.

The annual events usually continue to bring the Turners Station and the Dundalk community out to commemorate Mrs. Lacks and her family, their sacrifices, and HeLa's contributions to science, medicine, and public health. Events in the Turner Station's community also commemorate the contributions of others including Mrs. Mary Kubicek, the laboratory assistant who discovered that HeLa cells lived outside the body, as well Dr. Gey and his nurse wife, Mrs. Margaret Gey, who together after over twenty years of attempts were eventually able to grow human cells outside of the body.

Further reading

• Modern Times: The Way of All Flesh; (1997) BBC documentary on Henrietta Lacks, directed by Adam Curtis
• Michael Gold, A Conspiracy of Cells, 1986, State University of New York Press
• Rebecca Skloot, 2007, HeLa: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
• Rebecca Skloot, Henrietta's Dance, Hopkins Magazine:
• Rebecca Skloot, Cells That Save Lives are a Mother's Legacy, New York Times: New York Times
• Hannah Landecker 2000 Immortality, In Vitro. A History of the HeLa Cell Line. In Brodwin, Paul E., ed.: Biotechnology and Culture. Bodies, Anxieties, Ethics. Bloomington/Indianapolis, 53-72, ISBN 0-253-21428-9
• Hannah Landecker, 1999, "Between Beneficence and Chattel: The Human Biological in Law and Science," Science in Context, 203-225.
• Hannah Landecker, 2007, Culturing Life: How Cells Became Technologies. HeLa is the title of the fourth chapter.
• Russell Brown and James H M Henderson, 1983, The Mass Production and Distribution of HeLa Cells at Tuskegee Institute, 1953-1955. J Hist Med allied Sci 38(4):415-43

References

Persondata
NAME	Lacks, Henrietta
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Pleasant, Henrietta
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Medical patient
DATE OF BIRTH	August 18, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH	Maryland
DATE OF DEATH	October 4, 1951
PLACE OF DEATH	Johns Hopkins University Hospital

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