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  • A microscope image from the Exploratorium exhibit Are Your Cells You?
  • Exploratorium exhibit Are Your Cells You?
  • Henrietta Lacks
  • Are HeLa cells merely cells, or part of Henrietta Lacks's self?

  • A microscope image from the Exploratorium exhibit Are Your Cells You?
  • Exploratorium exhibit Are Your Cells You?
  • Henrietta Lacks
  • Are Your Cells You?

Are Your Cells You?

Explore ethical and philosophical questions about the first "immortal" cell line.


Where:   Gallery 4: Living Systems
Exhibit Developers:   Jennifer Berry, Angela Armendariz, and Kevin Boyd, 2017

As visitors examine a microscope view of living HeLa cells—the first “immortal” cell line—they explore ethical and philosophical questions about these historic and controversial cells.

HeLa cells can divide indefinitely, and helped revolutionize biomedical research. However, they also were taken by medical researchers without permission from Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman in the 1950s.

Are HeLa cells merely cells, or are they part of the self of Henrietta Lacks?

 

External resources

Website about the book: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.

Press release: “NIH, Lacks Family Reach Understanding to Share Genomic Data of HeLa Cells.” National Institutes of Health, 2013

Article: “The Good, The Bad, and The HeLa,” by Alexandra del Carpio, Berkeley Science Review, 2014

 
Aliases: HeLa Cells
Collections: Cells to Self

More to explore

Science activity that explores growth rates for cultured cells
How Many HeLa?

Dividing cells expand exponentially.

Cells to Self
Cells to Self

Explore how human cells move, communicate, and respond to their environment.

Related exhibits

Give Heart Cells a Beat
Give Heart Cells a Beat

Use your heart rate to drive the beating of human heart cells. 

Look Inside a Developing Fish
Look Inside a Developing Fish

Use a microscope to investigate developing zebrafish eggs.

Live Chicken Embryos
Live Chicken Embryos

Take a look at living chicken embryos in various stages of development.

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