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Jennifer Miranda

Ms.Battle

English-II

23 February 2017

The power of HeLa and its cancer research

12,990 women in the United States will be diagnosed with cervical cancer. It is estimated

that 4,120 deaths from the disease will occur this year according to American Cancer Society's

publication, Cancer Facts & Figures 2016. HeLa cells are the workhorses of cancer research.

HeLa are cells from cervical cells taken from Henrietta Lacks, a young cancer patient in 1951.

In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, she follows the story of the

famous HeLa cell line, introducing us to the woman behind these cells, the family she came

from, and how her cells swept the field of science. Henrietta Lacks died of cervical cancer eight

months later, but her cells live on in laboratories around the world. Cervical cancer is cancer that

starts in the cervix. The cervix is the lower part of the uterus (womb) that opens at the top of the

vagina. Some question will be answered in this research essay are, What are some of the illegal

ways scientist and doctors do cancer research? , If HeLa cells are cancer cells, how are they

useful for research into anything other than cancer, like vaccine production? Who created

Vaccines with HeLa cells and how were they were created?, and What are HeLa cells used

for?.
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Some Illegal cancer research that was being done in the book The Immortal Life of

Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot was when they mentioned the nuremberg code. The

nuremberg was made because Nazi doctors were convicted of the crimes committed during

human experiments on concentration camp prisoners. It attempted to give clear rules about what

was legal and what was not when conducting human experiments. Also in the book by Rebecca

Skloot she talks about some illegal cancer research that was being done by Bertil Bjorklund He

had been giving himself and patients intravenous injections of vaccines made from HeLa cells.

(page 133) During this time the researchers did not get informed consent from all their patients

because they all had problem from parkinson disease to depressive psychosis . The

Researchers did not tell patients injected with cell were not told they were cancer. Finally

another cancer research that was not illegal but kinda is because they did not give enough and

misguided information to their patients. Chester M. Southam, MD, a noted immunologist at

Sloan-Kettering Institute sought to study the human immunity response to cancer. He obtained

funding from the government and injected live cancer cells into 14 patients with advanced cancer

and into healthy convicts at Ohio State Prison. The study in prisoners was designed to examine

the natural killing off process of the human body; inmates were misinformed, when told they

faced no grave danger. Any cancer that took would spread slowly . . . and could be removed

surgically. Two of the patients died before their projected prognosis; four patients developed

tumors that were surgically removed; in some patients the tumors grew back, and one patient

metastasized. Half of the test subjects in this NIH-sponsored study were black. The reason

Henrietta's cells were so precious was because they allowed scientists to perform experiments

that would have been impossible with a living human. They cut HeLa cells apart and exposed
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them to endless toxins, radiation, and infection. They bombarded them with drugs, hoping to find

one that would kill malignant cells without destroying normal ones. (58) This meant that

scientists all over the world had a never-ending supply on which to conduct experiments. By

doing all this crazy stuff to HeLa, research didn't have to be conducted on humans.

Next, HeLa cells were used to help develop treatments for Parkinsons disease, polio

virus, influenza, leukemia, and hemophilia. Parkinsons disease is the second most common

neurodegenerative disease it is also a progressive disease of the nervous system marked by

tremor, muscular rigidity, and slow, imprecise movement- (by Hongyan Zhou). On

weebly.com they said that Researchers in Shanghai pre-treated HeLa cells with rotenone to

simulate damage caused by Parkinson's and then treated the cells with melatonin. Influenza is a

highly contagious viral infection of the respiratory passages causing fever, and severe aching. In

a microbiology lab at New York's Columbia University, Professor Vincent Racaniello

experiments with HeLa cells that have led to some of the greatest medical breakthroughs of the

last hundred years. They have found universal influenza vaccine that you will only need every 10

years. Leukemia is a malignant progressive disease in which the bone marrow and other

blood-forming organs produce increased numbers of immature or abnormal leukocytes. These

suppress the production of normal blood cells, leading to anemia and other symptoms. Murine

leukemia virus particles activate Rac1 in HeLa cells. Hemophilia is a disorder in which blood

doesn't clot normally. People with hemophilia lack a protein that is necessary for normal blood

clotting. As many as one third of people with hemophilia develop an antibody called an inhibitor

to the blood products that they use to stop or prevent a bleeding episode. Treatment of bleeding

becomes extremely difficult, and the cost of care can skyrocket; researchers in turn are looking at
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why some people develop inhibitors. The connection is where researchers are using HeLa cells

to study these inhibitors. HeLa cells are numerous allowing testing to only be on cells and not

people. Polio is transmitted through contaminated water and food or contact with an infected

person. Many people who are infected with the poliovirus don't become sick and have no

symptoms. However, those who do get sick develop paralysis, which can sometimes be fatal.

Polio vaccines are vaccines used to prevent poliomyelitis. There are two types: one that uses

inactivated poliovirus and is given by injection, and one that uses weakened poliovirus and is

given by mouth. People with hemophilia lack a protein that is necessary for normal blood

clotting. As many as one third of people with hemophilia develop an antibody called an inhibitor

to the blood products that they use to stop or prevent a bleeding episode. Treatment of bleeding

becomes extremely difficult, and the cost of care can skyrocket; researchers in turn are looking at

why some people develop inhibitors. The connection is where researchers are using HeLa cells

to study these inhibitors. HeLa cells are numerous allowing testing to only be on cells and not

people. The first polio vaccine was the inactivated polio vaccine. It was developed by Jonas Salk

and came into use in 1955.

Furthermore, HeLa cells have many uses they have been used to develop virology field of

biology study of viruses, Develop methods of freezing cells for storage, develop standardized

methods for culturing cells, develop the first vaccine for polio, and to develop methods for

accurately determining the number of chromosomes in cells beneficial for cancer research. HeLa

cells have been used to study effects of radiation, used to study effects of deep sea pressure, used

to test safety of cosmetics and pharmaceuticals by replacing lab animals, used in research on

HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), the most common sexually transmitted disease to help
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with developing treatments for AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome), used in research

on what causes aging, used in studying the effects of salmonella and tuberculosis, used to

determined that HPV (human papilloma virus) causes cancer, and finally used to help develop

treatments for Parkinsons disease, influenza, leukemia, and hemophilia. Scientists wanted to

grow cellular cloneslines of cells descended from individual cellsso they could harness

those unique traits. With HeLa, a group of scientists in Colorado succeeded, and soon the world

of science had not only HeLa but also its hundreds, then thousands, of clones. (100) Skloot

explains that individual cells in a single body, while similar, make their own proteins and behave

differently. It was important for scientists to be able to isolate desirable traits and copy them for

future use. But cellular cloning is quite a different thing than making a Xerox copy of a complete

human being. The confusion over this led Deborah to suffer a lot of anxiety about the "cloning"

of her mother.

Finally, These cells have transformed modern medicine. They shaped the policies of

countries and of presidents. They even became involved in the Cold War. Because scientists

were convinced that in her cells lay the secret of how to conquer death. In The Immortal Life

of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, she follows the story of the famous HeLa cell line,

introducing us to the woman behind these cells, the family she came from, and how her cells

swept the field of science.

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LDQodurwC-w>.
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<http://79798568.weebly.com/parkinsons.html>.

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Skloot, Rebecca. N.p.: Crown Group, n.d. Print. The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks