Henrietta's Immortal Cells Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Henrietta's Immortal Cells - Essay Example Sadly, this same rate of cell proliferation killed Henrietta but the cells have lived on to become support pillars of biological researches. â€Å"He-La are the first immortal human cell lineage† (Howard W Jones, Victor A. McKusick; Obstetrics and gynecology, pg-945-949). Dr.Gey distributed the cells worldwide to researchers, to help in research endeavors, because â€Å"He-la cells could be grown by anyone capable of trypsinizing cells† (Fredrick Bang, History of tissue culture), they divided rapidly, synthesized normal proteins, mimicked normal cell signaling, gene regulation and could be infected, and thus they became potential tools for study. He-La cells helped to develop Salk’s vaccine and the cells have also been used for gene mapping, Aids and Cancer studies, gene cloning, immunological studies. Author Rebecca Skloot â€Å"More than 60,000 published science articles have mentioned He-La cell research and the number just keeps on increasing† (Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal life of Henreitta