50 million tons of human immortal cells are taken from a woman

When you go to any cell culture laboratory in the world, you can also see billions of Henrietta cells stored by scientists there.

Henrietta Lacks - People are implanted with 50 million tons of immortal cells

In the past and present, immortality is still only a human dream. However, you may not know, there was once a woman who possessed immortal cells . These cells open up many doors for modern medicine. One more surprise, because of immortality, after her cells were stored, they divided millions of times. So far, the total number of human immortal cells has reached 50 million tons.

Picture 1 of 50 million tons of human immortal cells are taken from a woman
Henrietta Lacks who owns immortal cells.

When you go to any cell culture laboratory in the world, you can also see billions of Henrietta cells stored by scientists there. Henrietta Lacks is a tobacco farmer, African-American. In 1951, after she died of cancer, doctors secretly collected cells that were found to be immortal on her body.

These cells are then rapidly multiplied in large numbers and distributed to laboratories around the world. They were later used to serve nearly 75,000 studies, helping to bring important breakthroughs in many areas such as vaccine preparation, cancer treatment and reproduction.

While our normal cells will die after a certain number of reproductive times, the cells of Henrietta can live indefinitely if provided with enough nutrients needed to survive. It can even be frozen after decades and then revived by increasing the temperature again.

Over the past 60 years, it has been estimated that up to 50 million tons of cells were produced from the first cells of Henrietta collected. They contribute greatly to studies of paralysis; gene mapping; learn how cells work; develop drugs to treat cancer, herpes, leukemia, flu, hemophilia, Parkinson's disease, AIDS .

Picture 2 of 50 million tons of human immortal cells are taken from a woman
Henrietta Lacks cells are distributed throughout laboratories around the world.

Before Henrietta's cells were discovered, scientists were nearly unable to store and multiply human cells in large quantities outside the body. Most of them will die very quickly. Henrietta's cells open a new standard for scientists to perform research that has never been successful before.

Although Henrietta's cells contributed greatly to the medical achievements of mankind, her family did not know this. For six decades, her husband and five children still live in poverty without receiving any money for the contributions of Henrietta cells. It was not until 2013, the US National Institutes of Health began to acknowledge her contributions and made moves to support the rest of Henrietta's family.