Trivia

1. Henrietta Lacks’s cells were found to contain an especially potent strain of HPV (human papillomavirus)—one of the factors that helped them live forever. Because of research done on HeLa cells, scientists have been able to develop a test and vaccine for the virus, saving women from the cervical cancer that took Henrietta’s life.
2. HeLa cells have been flown into space on missions led by both Russia and the United States to study how human cells behave in zero gravity.
3. Jonas Salk developed the polio vaccine using HeLa cells. Thanks to the vaccine, the deadly disease has been eradicated in the United States and much of the world.
4. Combined, all the HeLa cells produced in the world would weigh a total of 50 million metric tons, and, if stacked end-to-end, they would span more than 350 million feet.
5. Henrietta’s story has inspired at least two songs: “The Cells That Will Not Die” by Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine, and “Henrietta” by Yeasayer.
6. There is a public school in Vancouver, Washington, named Henrietta Lacks Health and Bioscience High School. Locals refer to it as “HeLa High.”
7. HeLa cells were used in atomic bomb testing to discover the effects nuclear bombs would have on humans.
8. Oprah Winfrey and HBO Films are producing a film based on The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and began shooting in the summer of 2016. The cast includes Courtney B. Vance, Renée Elise Goldsberry, and Leslie Uggams; Winfrey plays Deborah Lacks.
9. HeLa cells have inspired several works of art. In HeLa on Zhora’s coat, artist Aleksandra Domanović transformed images of HeLa cells into a pattern on a raincoat. HeLa, an installation by Christine Borland, features a petri dish filled with HeLa cells under a microscope with live images of the cells multiplying in the dish projected on a screen.
10. Rebecca Skloot created the Henrietta Lacks Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides financial assistance to individuals in need who have made contributions to science without their knowledge or consent. Grants have been given to the Lacks family and descendants of research subjects used in the Tuskegee syphilis studies. A portion of the profits from sales of her book are contributed to the foundation.