Today I found out there was once a woman who had immortal cells. These immortal cells have multiplied to the point that if you were to weigh all of them that live today, they’d weigh about 50 million metric tons, which is about as much as 100 Empire State Buildings. So who was this woman and why are scientists keeping about 50 million metric tons of her cells supplied with fresh nutrients so they can live on? The woman was Henrietta Lacks and her immortal cells have been essential in curing polio; gene mapping; learning how cells work; developing drugs to treat cancer, herpes, leukemia, influenza, hemophilia, Parkinson’s disease, AIDS… The list goes on and on and on. If it deals with the human body and has been studied by scientists, odds are, they needed and used Henrietta’s immortal cells somewhere along the way. Her cells were even sent up to space on an unmanned satellite to determine whether or not human tissue could survive in zero gravity.
Go to just about any cell culture lab in the world and you’ll find billions of Henrietta’s cells stored there. What’s unique about her cells is that, not only do they never die, in contrast to normal human cells which will die after a few replications, but her cells can also live and replicate just fine outside of the human body, which is also unique among humans. Give her cells the nutrients they need to survive and they will live and replicate along forever, apparently (almost 60 years and counting since the first culture was taken). They can even be frozen for literally decades and later thawed and they will go right on replicating...
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