Hela Cell Line

Muhammad Fida Hussain

Amina Chaudhary

Muhammad Zohaib Iqbal

Anam Nadeem

HeLa Cells

Questions to consider…

What is a cell line?

What are HeLa cells?

What milestones in cell biology studies were possible because of HeLa cells?

How does one scientist used this cell line?

What about research conducted about?

Questions to consider…

What is a cell line?

What are HeLa cells?

What milestones in biology studies were possible because of HeLa cells?

How does one scientist used this cell line?

What about research conducted about?

Questions to consider…

What is a cell line?

What are HeLa cells?

What milestones in cell biology studies were possible because of HeLa cells?

How does one scientist used this cell line?

What about research conducted ?

HENRIETTA LACKS

Henrietta Lacks

•Henrietta Lacks was a poor, black, farmer• She was born in 1920 and died on October 4, 1951 from cancer.

Henrietta Lacks and HeLa cells

I951- Henrietta went to Johns Hopkins for treatment of her aggressive adenocarcinoma of the cervix (died later in 1951)

Tissue sample taken without consent – given to Dr. George Gey

Without her knowing, the cells from her cancerous tumour were cultured (grown in a laboratory) to create the first known human immortal cell line for medical research.

This is now known as the HeLa cell line.

Henrietta’s tumour cells

They could be kept alive and grow.

Before this, cells cultured from other cells would only survive for a few days.

Scientists spent more time trying to keep the cells alive than performing actual research on the cells

Questions to consider…

What is a cell line?

What are HeLa cells?

What milestones in biology studies were possible because of HeLa cells?

How did one scientist used this cell line?

What about research conducted ?

What was the breakthrough with HeLaCells?

Human cells cultured for the first time! (Gey had cultured other species and had worked for over 20 years with this aim)

Cancer researchers considered cultured human cells to hold the key to discovering a cure

Provided a model cell line for studying normal cellular processes as well as many diseases

What milestones in cell biology were possible because of HeLa cells?

What milestones in cell biology were possible because of HeLa cells?

Polio infection process and vaccine development

Research to isolate single cells and eventually to establish clonal cell lines

Methods established for chromosome spreading and karyotyping

Ongoing research on telomerase (Nobel Prize 2009)

Original Research on Polio Infection

Infected Cells

Uninfected Cells

HeLa cells

By 1954, the HeLa strain of cells was being used by Jonas Salk to develop a vaccine for polio. To test Salk's new vaccine, the cells were quickly put into mass production in the first-ever cell production factory.

Enormous number of uses for her cells

Research into cancer, AIDS, the effects of radiation and toxic substances, gene mapping, in vitro fertililsation and countless other scientific pursuits".

Test human sensitivity to tape, glue, cosmetics, and many other products. Scientists have grown some 20 tons of her cells, and there are almost 11,000 patents involving HeLa cells. The cells have been used in

74,000 studies.

HeLa cells in space

Research into the effect space has on cells and tissues was also carried out using HeLa cells.

Henrietta’s cells were were on board of the satellite Korabl-Sputnik 2 in 1960.

They were also on board the first manned space flight in1961

Her family later learnt about these cells

In the early 1970s, the family of Henrietta Lacks started getting calls from researchers who wanted blood samples from them to learn the family's genetics (eye colours, hair colours, and genetic connections). The family questioned this, which led to them learning about the removal of Henrietta's cells. Henrietta’s cells had been bought and sold by the billions, yet she remained virtually unknown while her family were too poor to afford health insurance.

Ethical Issues

• Is it moral to use human genetic material for testing?

• Is it moral to clone human genetic material or combine it cross-species?

• What moral obligation to we have to the rest of society to allow our bodies to be used?

Hela Ethical Issues

Two articles written in March 1976 by Michael Rogers, one in the Detroit Free Press[28] and one in Rolling Stone.

Henrietta Lacks Foundation .

Law and Ethics

cells were later commercialized in the 1980s.family medical records were published without family

consent. In

1990 in America, the court ruled that a person's discarded tissue and cells are not their property and can be commercialized.

n March 2013, German researchers published the DNA code, or genome, of a strain of HeLa cells

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/07/henrietta-lacks-family-settlement-on-dna-info_n_3720936.html

A highly recommended read!

Recognition then followed.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot is a superb book which documents the histories of both the HeLa cell line and the Lacks family. It tells a riveting story of the collision between ethics, race, and medicine; of scientific discovery and faith healing; and of a daughter consumed with questions about the mother she never knew. It’s a story inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we’re made of.

Questions???