HeLa () is an immortalized cell line used in scientific research. It is the oldest human cell line and one of the most commonly used. HeLa cells are durable and prolific, allowing for extensive applications in scientific study. The line is derived from cervical cancer cells taken on February 8, 1951, from Henrietta Lacks, a 31-year-old African-American woman, after whom the line is named. Lacks died of cancer on October 4, 1951. The cells from Lacks's cancerous cervical tumor were taken without her knowledge, which was common practice in the United States at the time. Cell biologist George Otto Gey found that they could be kept alive, and developed a cell line. Previously, cells cultured from other human cells would survive for only a few days, but cells from Lacks's tumor behaved differently.
History
Origin In 1951, Henrietta Lacks was admitted to the Johns Hopkins Hospital with symptoms of irregular vaginal bleeding; she was subsequently treated for cervical cancer. Her original tumor, initially diagnosed as an epidermoid (squamous cell) carcinoma, was later reclassified as an adenocarcinoma of the cervix. Her first treatment was performed by Lawrence Wharton Jr., who at that time collected tissue samples from her cervix without her consent. Her cervical biopsy supplied samples of tissue for clinical evaluation and research by George Otto Gey, head of the Tissue Culture Laboratory. Gey's lab assistant Mary Kubicek used the roller-tube technique to culture the cells. It was observed that the cells grew robustly, doubling every 20–24 hours, unlike previous specimens, which died out. The cells were propagated by Gey shortly before Lacks died of her cancer in 1951. This was the first human cell line to prove successful in vitro, which was a scientific achievement with profound future benefit to medical research. Gey freely donated these cells, along with the tools and processes that his lab developed, to any scientist requesting them, simply for the benefit of science. Neither Lacks nor her family gave permission to harvest the cells. The cells were later commercialized, although never patented in their original form. There was no requirement at that time to inform patients or their relatives about such matters, because discarded material or material obtained during surgery, diagnosis, or therapy was considered the property of the physician or the medical institution. As was customary for Gey's lab assistant, the culture was named after the first two letters of Henrietta Lacks' first and last names, He + La. Before a 1973 query printed in the journal Nature obtained her real name, the "HeLa" cell line was incorrectly attributed to a "Helen Lane" or "Helen Larson". The origin of this obfuscation is unclear. In 1973, staff at Johns Hopkins discovered that HeLa cells could travel through the air and easily contaminate other cell cultures. When staff at Johns Hopkins realized this, a staff physician contacted the Lacks family and sought DNA samples to help identify which non-HeLa cultures were contaminated with HeLa cells. The family never understood the purpose of the visit, but they were distressed by their understanding of what the researchers told them. These cells are treated as cancer cells, as they are descended from a biopsy taken from a visible lesion on the cervix as part of Lacks's diagnosis of cancer. HeLa cells, like other cell lines, are termed "immortal" because they can divide an unlimited number of times in a laboratory cell culture plate, as long as fundamental cell survival conditions are met (i.e. being maintained and sustained in a suitable environment). There are many strains of HeLa cells, because they mutate during division in cell cultures, but all HeLa cells are descended from the same tumor cells removed from Lacks. The total number of HeLa cells that have been propagated in cell culture far exceeds the total number of cells that were in Henrietta Lacks's body.
Controversy
Lacks's case is one of many examples of the lack of informed consent in 20th-century medicine. Communication between tissue donors and doctors was virtually nonexistent—cells were taken without patient consent, and patients were not told what the cells would be used for. Johns Hopkins Hospital, where Lacks received treatment and had her tissue harvested, was the only hospital in the Baltimore area where African American patients could receive free care. The patients who received free care from this segregated sect of the hospital often became research subjects without their knowledge. Lacks' family also had no access to her patient files and had no say in who received HeLa cells or what they would be used for. Additionally, as HeLa cells were popularized and used more frequently throughout the scientific community, Lacks' relatives received no financial benefit and continued to live with limited access to healthcare. This issue of who owns tissue samples taken for research was brought up in the Supreme Court of California case of Moore v. Regents of the University of California in 1990. The court ruled that a person's discarded tissue and cells are not his or her property and can be commercialized. Lacks's case influenced the establishment of the Common Rule in 1991. The Common Rule enforces informed consent by ensuring that doctors inform patients if they plan to use any details of the patient's case in research and give them the choice of disclosing the details or not. Tissues connected to their donors' names are also strictly regulated under this rule, and samples are no longer named using donors' initials, but rather by code numbers. To further resolve the issue of patient privacy, Johns Hopkins established a joint committee with the NIH and several of Lacks's family members to determine who receives access to Henrietta Lacks's genome. In 2021, Henrietta Lacks's estate sued to get past and future payments for the alleged unauthorized and widely known sale of HeLa cells by Thermo Fisher Scientific. Lacks's family hired an attorney to seek compensation from upwards of 100 pharmaceutical companies that have used and profited from HeLa cells. Settlement of the suit with Thermo Fisher Scientific was announced in August 2023, with undisclosed terms. Novartis, a company that developed hundreds of patents using HeLa cells, settled in 2026. As of March 2026, lawsuits against Ultragenyx and Viatris are still pending.
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