I came across an article a few days ago and wanted to share. As may of you know by now, I do cancer (leukemia) research. My PhD thesis involves the design, generation, and testing of anti-cancer drugs.
Where does one obtain cancer cells, you might ask? Well from a tumor of course. But how do we keep them in the laboratory for extended periods of time in order to study them? Because once isolated, cells (even cancer cells) die after a few days.
Cells infected with a virus bearing an oncogene (cancer causing gene) can become 'immortalized' and continue to divide and divide....for generations. Think about it: Living cells from your body can be removed and made to never die. The first cancer cell lines was obtained from a poor black potato farmer named Henrietta Lacks in 1951. Although she has passed, her tumor cells continue to provide a foundation for modern cancer research and therapeutics. Her cells are still 'living' 60 years later....
Oh, and look what I'm working with today:
HeLa cells growing in flasks (on the left).
Check out these two short articles. Quite a fascinating story:
Smithsonian Magazine
Washington Post
-Lauren
(Experiments performed at National Institutes of Health)
um, I love when you talk about fun science things :D. I just applied to some jobs working for oncology departments but I don't wanna say too much yet, till I GET a job!
ReplyDelete@Katie@ Two Lives, One Lifestyle Thanks!! I'm always a little nervous to post my nerdy science stuff :-)
ReplyDeleteI'm an undergrad student studying genetics and we used HeLa cells in our lab. When I first found out about her, I was simply amazed. Someone recently wrote a book about her, too.
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