HeLa

Immortality has long been the subject of both science fiction, and science journals, and while it may seem unbelievable to some, the harvested cells of one woman never died. This launched a revolution that shifted the course of medical history and lead to innumerable discoveries that have in some way affected nearly every human being on the planet. In her best-selling book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot tells the story of a kind and caring black women in the 1950’s who…

I've been reading the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. This book is about a black woman who died of a cervical cancer in 1951 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. Doctors took a cell from her cervix without any consent of her or her family. Her cells are still alive today, growing and multiplying. After this event her family will never be the same. The family discovered it more than two decades later that part of Henrietta was still alive and has been…

The Case of Belle Gibson In the following case study we see the negative effects of breaking down these barriers and not having the third party to censor the content that celebrities are publishing. Annabelle Natalie “Belle” Gibson is a 24 year old blogger who claimed to have battled cancer through alternative medicine. She fabricated stories about how she self-treated her cancer by dieting. She also invented a Smartphone Application and wrote a book about her “healthy lifestyle”. She spread…

Rosalind Franklin began her work as soon as possible and continued working until she was truly physically unable to. In 1956, age 36, Franklin discovered that she had ovarian cancer (Biography “Rosalind Franklin”). How she came to develop this cancer is debated, whether is was due to the radiation of working with x-ray crystallography (Bagley) or possibly that it was the wicked irony of the gene being in her own DNA due to the fact that Ashkenazi Jews have a “hereditary predisposition to ovarian…

than three, and be specific.) I take great pride in being acknowledged in a recent Nature scientific journal publication entitled “Epigenetic Editing of Ascl1 gene in Neural Stem Cells by Optogenetics,” which stems from my work as a research intern at the Indiana University School of Medicine. I am also proud to have had the opportunity to present my research work as a semi-finalist at the Armed Forces-sponsored Southern California Junior Sciences and Humanities Symposium. Last but not least, I…

The most ethical controversy that differs from the 1950’s to today is about the Henrietta’s story is if it was right for them to take her cells. Individuals believe that most scientists solely cared about the beneficial advantages that would come from Henrietta’s cells, but never thought about where they came from, whether she had given consent, or whether her family might care about that. Today, society is sympathetic for Henrietta’s family as no one told or asked permission from her family to…

Puneet Cheema 12/5/2014 PHIL 355 Professor Stacey Elizabeth Ake Extra Credit Opportunity #1: What is the story of Jessie Gelsinger? What was its impact on the development of gene therapy? In September 1999, Jesse Gelsinger passed away. It is often remembered by many medical researchers despite not really being a household name. It happened through the gene therapy clinical trial that altered the field, similarly to the Tuskegee experiments. The research practices…

Medical Ethics and the Abuse of Power In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, we see how medical professionals can abuse their power when treating patients. Henrietta Lacks was an underprivileged, African American woman with cervical cancer. While visiting her doctors for treatment, cancerous cells were taken from her, harvested, and distributed to labs all over the world without her knowledge. She was treated during the 1950s when racism was at its prime, causing her to be…

Twenty-five years ago, two women, brilliant and brave women, gave a landmark speech on the AIDS epidemic at the 1992 Democratic National Convention in New York City. Elizabeth Glaser, who was one of the two women speakers had contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion, passed it on to her children, and would shortly lose her life to it in 1994 (Lucas, S. & Medhurst, M., 2009). Elizabeth, who during her speech, referred to herself as the “strange spokesperson” for such a group – was a well-to-do…

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot displays the controversy as to whether or not the public has a responsibility to support scientific progress at all costs. This controversy became evident after Henrietta Lacks’ cervical tissues were taken from her body without her consent and then her cells, which became immortal, were used for medical research everywhere and her family did not know about it. These cells have helped the medical field in…