He La, the play which won the Scottish Theatre Fringe Award for the best production at the Edinburgh Festival 2013, ran to packed houses in Jagriti Theatre. Adura Onashile the solo performer unfolded the little known story of Henrietta Lacks, immortalized as HeLa, the human cell line that defies death and grows in petridishes in the laboratory on which medical and biological research is done world over.
It was in 1950 that Henrietta Lacks consulted Dr. George Otto Gey at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore. The diagnosis : cervical cancer. Dr. Gey had been seeing cancer patients for quite some time. Hell bent on understanding the disease better and thus zero in on a cure, he routinely collected cancer cell samples from patients. If only he could grow them in the laboratory ! The collected samples were coded with the first two letters of the patient's first and last names. And that is how Henrietta Lacks became HeLa. Of the several thousand samples collected, only HeLa demonstrated the unusual ability to survive and multiply in petridishes. Thus the first immortal human cell line HeLa was borne. Since then for biomedical research HeLa cells have become the crucial and inevitable raw material. HeLa cells standardized the procedures and processes for experimental research. Scientists now could compare and contrast their results, repeat and reproduce their experiments on a common platform: everyone was using HeLa cells.
When Dr Gey took samples from his patients, there were no laws on medical ethics in place. Dr Gey's intentions were purely scientific. He freely shared the samples with other researchers. He never attempted to patent them either. In 1951 The Tuskegee Institute took up the responsibility of mass producing HeLa cells and supplying it for research, this too was a non-profit mission. Necessity not only gives birth to invention (also called discovery) but also its twin brother Business. As demand grew He La production moved into the hands of profit-makers. Currently HeLa cell line is available from certain pharmceutical firms for a price. It is important to mention here that Henrietta's descendants never received any benefits from any of these business ventures.In fact it was only in 1973, that they even came to know about the existence of HeLa cells and its true identity. In fact Rebecca Skloot mentions that they are too poor to afford health insurance
In 1950, 30 year old Henrietta Lacks had entered the Johns Hopkins Hospital and walked into the ward set aside for COLOREDs in the Johns Hopkins Hospital, because that was what she was- a woman of African American origin. Today, if alive she would have touched 84 and as it says in the play how would she have felt to know that anyone who has taken a pill stronger than aspirin owes it to her?
In 1950, 30 year old Henrietta Lacks had entered the Johns Hopkins Hospital and walked into the ward set aside for COLOREDs in the Johns Hopkins Hospital, because that was what she was- a woman of African American origin. Today, if alive she would have touched 84 and as it says in the play how would she have felt to know that anyone who has taken a pill stronger than aspirin owes it to her?
Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: by Rebecca Skloot (Reprinted by Broadway Books 2011, ISBN-10 9768140005218).
