Henritta's Discovery Of The Hela Cells

Throughout chapter 27 the readers gain more of an understanding of the science behind Henrietta's cells. Most importantly there was the discovery of the sexually transmitted disease called Human Papillomavirus (HPV). What HPV does is turn of a gene that is a tumor suppressor and the HeLa cells tested positive for this HPV virus. While this discovery provided some light on the mystery of Henritta's cause of cancer, it still could not lead to any clues on the uniqueness of Henrietta’s cells. Her cells and the way they have been manipulated and used in the scientific community brings on the topic of immortality. When trying to understand the HeLa cells impact, it is important to realize that Henrietta’s cells were looked as more as a science …show more content…
Maybe because of Henrietta being a poor black women not many people had much of a are were the cells originated from. Henrietta’s cells created a whole community dedicated towards the research of her cells, as if a part of Henrietta has been transformed into a large segment of the scientific community. Cells can be “immortalized” by exposing them to chemicals and viruses, what took back scientist was the Henrietta's didn’t need that to become immortal. When cells are being cultured in a lab they can take many different properties after being exposed to different environments. Because of the cells uniqueness, the HeLa cells were shipped all over and were tested by different scientist. After awhile the cells divide into daughter cells, which are an evolved form of Henrietta’s cells that live past it original anscestor (158). Many can argue that Henrietta still lives but through the scientific labs studying the HeLa cells.