The descendants of Henrietta Lacks have settled with a biotechnology company that they had accused in a lawsuit of profiting from the cell line named for her, HeLa.
Lacks was 31 when she died in October 1951. Eight months prior, the mother of five learned she had cervical cancer after being admitted to a racially segregated ward at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Without her consent, doctors extracted a sample of cells from the tumor in her cervix and gave them to a medical researcher at Johns Hopkins University. The sample became the first human cells to grow and reproduce in lab dishes continually.
According to PBS News, He La cells are immortal, continuing to divide when most cells would die. From polio and COVID-19 vaccines to cancer research and sequencing of the human genome, HeLa cells have been the linchpin of numerous scientific findings and advancements. Companies have made billions in profit from the cells, but the Lacks family had never been compensated.
After the ruling, Lack’s grandson, Alfred Lacks Carter Jr., said, “it could not have been a more fitting day for her to have justice and for her family to have relief,” per the New York Times. “It was a long fight, over 70 years, and Henrietta Lacks gets her day.”
“Not only were the HeLa cells derived from Henrietta Lacks — the HeLa cells are Henrietta Lacks,” Ben Crump, an attorney for the family, said during a news conference.
Johns Hopkins University denies profiting from Lacks’ cells, adding that the harvesting and use of her cells was “an acceptable and legal practice in the 1950s, such a practice would not happen today without the patient’s consent,” via its website.
Tuesday was Henrietta Lacks’ 103rd birthday
