Henrietta Lacks
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Henrietta Lacks was an African-American woman whose cancer cells are the source of the HeLa cell line, the first immortalized human cell line and one of the most important cell lines in medical resear
Lacks c. 1945–1951
Lacks Town Road in Clover, Virginia, near where Lacks grew up and is buried
Dividing HeLa cells in culture. The cells can be seen metaphase and telophase, different stages of cell division.
A historical marker memorializing Henrietta Lacks in Clover, Virginia
George Otto Gey
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George Otto Gey was an American cell biologist at Johns Hopkins Hospital who is credited with propagating the HeLa cell line from Henrietta Lacks' cervical tumor. He spent over 35 years developing num
Henrietta Lacks
…tumor biopsied during her treatment for cervical cancer at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1951. These cells were then cultured by George Otto Gey, who created the cell line known as HeLa, which is still used for medical research. As was then the practice, no consent was required to culture the…
George Gey
Scanning electron micrograph of cultured HeLa cells infected with adenovirus, taken in 1976. These cells were originally from Henrietta Lacks and were first grown in the laboratory of Dr Gey in 1951. A light micrograph (x130) of the same cells (inset) reveals rounded double cells in the center, in the process of dividing.