The girl changed the world medicine

From some cancer cells of a woman, scientists have brought medical breakthroughs in the past hundred years, such as polio vaccine, cancer treatment, flu .

In a microbiology laboratory at Columbia University, New York, USA, experiments by Professor Vincent Racaniello with some cells have brought major medical breakthroughs in the past hundred years. But these are not ordinary cells. They are called Hela cells.

According to ABCnews, thanks to these facts, scientists have been studying to find a vaccine for polio, later on drugs for cancer, influenza and Parkinson's disease and in genetic mapping and cloning studies. asexual. They have also been used to check the radiation levels of atomic bombs and are sent out into the atmosphere.

All of these so-called Hela cells, billions of cells, come from a person, Henrietta Lacks, a 30-year-old unfortunate African-American woman, died nearly 60 years ago.

"What people get from these cells is an incredible thing, " said Rebecca Skloot, author of the book Immortal Life by Henrietta Lacks.

In 1951, Lacks went to Johns Hopkins Hospital, in Baltimore, USA because of cervical cancer. Before she died, the doctors took some cells from the tumor to study without telling her.

And scientists are surprised to find that these cells can do things they have never seen before: they are still alive and continue to multiply.

A year later Lacks died but her cells continued to live, providing a seemingly endless source of cells for research around the world and then being sold by companies.

For more than 20 years, no one in Lacks' family knows about this. First announced in the 1970s, they were really surprised and angry. While companies earn billions by selling these cells, her family is really poor.

By the time, they learned about the medical achievements achieved by her cells, anger turned into pride.