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Marist News

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: The Story Continues

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor black tobacco farmer undergoing cancer treatment whose cells—taken without her knowledge in 1951—became one of the most important tools in medicine, vital to the development of modern vaccines, cancer treatments, in vitro fertilization techniques, and more. HeLa cells are the most widely used human cell lines in existence. Mrs. Lacks鈥檚 cells have been bought and sold by the billions, yet she has been virtually unknown.