More Lawsuits From Family of Woman With ‘Immortal Cells’ – HotAir

Just in case you weren’t already familiar with the name, Henrietta Lacks was a young African-American woman who was born under the name Loretta Pleasant in Virginia, but would later marry and move and live in Maryland in the first half of the 20th century. Her name eventually became forever associated with the word “immortal.” Tragically, Mrs. Lacks herself was not immortal. Far from it. She only made it to the age of 31 after developing cervical cancer. She went for treatment at Johns Hopkins, where two sets of tissue samples were removed from her surgically for diagnosis and study. One set of cancerous cells turned out to be remarkable and essentially unique. When kept under the right conditions, Henrietta Lacks’ cells were found to be literally immortal. They were named HeLa cells and they could keep reproducing forever. It’s the only known line of human tissue cells ever found…