Hela細胞的故事

Hela細胞的由來？誰是Henrietta Lacks？她是一個身量苗條的女人，棕色皮膚，面容嬌好，善于烹飪，是五個孩子的母親，生活在六十年前巴爾的摩——那時，黑人還不能與白人同院看病，而她正是在慈善醫院John Hopkins的“有色病房”查出宮頸癌。很快，異常惡性的癌癥細胞無可逆轉地占據了她幾乎所有的內臟器官，“像覆蓋著一顆顆白色的珍珠”，她抽搐、咳血、消瘦，死于1951年的秋天。從Henrietta Lacks體內提出的癌細胞，在實驗室里*繁殖，成為人類歷*在體外被成功培養的細胞株——大名鼎鼎的Hela細胞。 

Hela細胞究竟有多少仍然存活？這一問題的答案早已無從知曉。一位科學家曾經估算，如果你把所有曾經培育過的Hela細胞放到天平上稱量，它們的總重量加起來會超過5000萬噸——這一數字簡直不可思議，要知道，每一個單獨細胞的重量輕到幾乎可以忽略不計。另外一位科學家還做過一項計算，稱如果你把所有培育過的Hela細胞時候尾相連，它們可以繞地球至少三圈，長度橫跨350，000，000英尺。而在亨麗愛塔的盛年，她站起來身高才不過五英尺多一點。

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. 

來源：女作家Rebecca Skloot   書《The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks》HeLa細胞的故事