Hela Cells: HelaCells.com

In 1951, a thirty-one year old women named Henrietta Lacks lay in a segregated ward of the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. After Henrietta's death, her cells were used to grow the polio virus that was ravaging children throughout the world. Henrietta today is buried in her hometown in Virginia in an unmarked grave. She doesn't know it, but she is a leading contributor to the science of aging and cancer.

One of the most widely used continuous cell lines in virology is the HeLa cell line, which was derived in 1951 from Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta's cells were named as HeLa after the first letters in Henrietta and Lacks. These cells became the first human cells to live indefinitely outside the body. The cell line was derived from cervical cancer cells taken from Henrietta Lacks, who died from her cancer on October 4, 1951. Henrietta's cells were, and still are today one of the strongest cells known to biological science as they are able to reproduce in 24 hours. The day George Gey got his hands on Henrietta Lacks's cells, everything changed. Henrietta Lacks' physician provided George and Margaret Gey of Johns Hopkins University with a sample of these cervical cancer cells. These cells were the first cells ever to be grown in culture and survive.