2023 05 The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks

Rotary Mtg at Cowdray Golf Club Monday 5h July 2023

Speaker Rotarian Dr Ian Goodall – The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

On Monday we were delighted to be given a presentation by our own Dr Ian Goodall.  Ian was the headmaster of a large secondary school and taught biology. Although he has partly retired he does do coaching for pupils helping with their exam revision. Ian also gives various talks to groups like ours – tonight -The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and the first polio vaccine.

In 1951, an African American woman named Henrietta Lacks discovered what she called a “knot” on her cervix that turned out to be a particularly virulent form of cervical cancer. The head of gynaecology at Johns Hopkins Hospital, who was studying cervical cancer at the time, had asked the head of tissue culture, George Gey, to develop a culture of both healthy and cancerous surgical cell tissue. As a result, Gey asked for tissue samples from all cervical cancer patients, including those from a smear test done on Henrietta Lacks. At the time, no human cells had ever survived long in a laboratory, but Henrietta’s cancer cells, which Gey labelled as HeLa, survived. Some of her cells were sent to scientists all over the world which lead to the beginnings of tissue culture.

Jonas Salk, at the Virus Research Laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, worked on  production of the first vaccine for polio. Henrietta’s family had no idea that cell’s had been taken from her, let alone that they had been sent all over the world and helped the advance of medical science.

This was a superb talk by Ian and if you would like to hear him speak I know he has several presentations that he is prepared to give.

Helen Chapman