Why are Henrietta Lack's cells so important?

“The reason Henrietta’s cell were so precious was because they allowed scientists to perform experiments that would have been impossible with a living human. They cut HeLa cells and exposed 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. They studied immune suppression and cancer growth by injecting HeLa cells into immune-compromised rats, which developed malignant tumors like much like Henrietta’s. If cells died in the process, it didn’t matter – scientists could go back to their eternally growing HeLa stock and start all over again“ .HeLa cells were also the first human cells to be successfully cloned in 1955 by Theodore Puck and Philip I Marcus at the University of Colorado, Denver.Since that time, HeLa cells have been used for "research into cancer, AIDS, the effects of radiation and toxic substances, gene mapping, and many other scientific pursuits".According to author Rebecca Skloot , by 2009, "more than 60,000 scientific articles had been published about research done on HeLa, and that number was increasing steadily at a rate of more than 300 papers each month."HeLa cells have been used in testing how parvo virus infects cells of humans, HeLa, dogs, and cats. These cells have also been used to study viruses and they are been very helpful to scientists because with these cells , they can continue their search.

Work made by Ana Valero