HeLa细胞的故事

Hela细胞的故事

Hela细胞的由来？谁是Henrietta Lacks？她是一个身量苗条的女人，棕色皮肤，面容娇好，善于烹饪，是五个孩子的母亲，生活在六十年前巴尔的摩——那时，黑人还不能与白人同院看病，而她正是在慈善医院John Hopkins的“有色病房”查出宫颈癌。很快，异常恶性的癌症细胞无可逆转地占据了她几乎所有的内脏器官，“像覆盖着一颗颗白色的珍珠”，她抽搐、咳血、消瘦，死于1951年的秋天。从Henrietta Lacks体内提出的癌细胞，在实验室里*繁殖，成为人类历*在体外被成功培养的细胞株——大名鼎鼎的Hela细胞。 

Hela细胞究竟有多少仍然存活？这一问题的答案早已无从知晓。一位科学家曾经估算，如果你把所有曾经培育过的Hela细胞放到天平上称量，它们的总重量加起来会超过5000万吨——这一数字简直不可思议，要知道，每一个单独细胞的重量轻到几乎可以忽略不计。另外一位科学家还做过一项计算，称如果你把所有培育过的Hela细胞时候尾相连，它们可以绕地球至少三圈，长度横跨350，000，000英尺。而在亨丽爱塔的盛年，她站起来身高才不过五英尺多一点。

摘：

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they’d weigh more than 50 million metric tons—as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions. 

Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave. 

Now Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells; from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia—a land of wooden slave quarters, faith healings, and voodoo—to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells. 

来源：女作家Rebecca Skloot   书《The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks》HeLa细胞的故事