Are Your Cells You?

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?

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