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Died in 1951, Africo-american woman named Henrietta Lacks, is a constant element of
the discussion about what can be called death.
Henrietta Lacks is in fact in some respects ... immortal. Cells taken from her body never
died.
A woman had been diagnosed with cancer. Samples of tissue were taken for research that was
led George Otto ***.
He discovered something surprising - sampled tumor cells were immortal and could divide
indefinitely. This is because they had a damaged apoptosis mechanisms - that is: programmed
cell death.
For researchers, it was a bulls-eye. Finally, they could examine the cells without the fear
that they will die during the study.
Thus, the strain "HeLa" was born (from the initials of Henrietta Lacks), which was amplified
and sent to a large number of scientists around the world.
And we're talking about giant values. It is estimated that worldwide there are more than
20 tons of cancer cells of Henrietta Lacks, and nearly 11,000 patents based on this strain.
The family of the deceased found out about this fact not-sooner until 1970 when they
began to get requests for genetic testing in order to thoroughly examine the sample.
It is a fascinating fact that people now living, and even soon-to-be-born, will die much earlier
than the cells of the tissue a woman who lived and died more than half a century ago.