Science biology Henrietta Lacks

Her friend's brother-in-law works at the National Cancer Institute with his cells

How does Bobbette find out that her mother-in-law's cells are...everywhere?

Because they reproduced an entire generation every 24 hours, and never stopped.

How were Henrietta Lacks cells different than most cells

To talk about how he thought cancer can be conquered based on the HeLa cells (though he didn't mention it by name)

On April 10, 1951, 3 weeks after Henrietta started x-ray treatment, why did Gey go on tv?

They all divided identically and produced the exact same proteins and enzymes, even though they'd all produced different ones before becoming malignant.

Once cultured cells became cancerous, what happened?

Get some blood from the Lacks family, to do a dna test on.

Susan Hsu is told by Victor McKusick to do what?

In 1954, He injected them into patients with diseases such as leukemia, telling them he was testing their immune system, not that he was injecting someone else's malignant cells.

What did Chester Southam do to see if cancer could be spread via the Hela cells?

That Henrietta was part alive, they'd been doing experiments on her, and they wanted to test his children to see if they had the same cancer.

What did Day think Hsu told him?

Normal cells didn't spontaneously become cancerous--they were just taken over by HeLa cells.

What did Gartler say about the transformation of cells into cancer cells?

toenails and fingernails

What did Henrietta always keep polished/pretty?

That it would make her infertile.

What did Henrietta not realize about the consequences of her cancer treatment?

She "converted" to Puerto Rican

What did Henrietta's sister Lillian do?

A tribue to Gey's career as a cancer researcher.

What did Howard Jones decide to write?

"We come to draw blood to get HLA antigen, we do genetic marker profile because we can deduce a lot of Henrietta Lacks genotype from the children and the husband." She said to Rebecca that "they are a very nice family, so they very nicely let us draw blood."

What did Hsu actually say to Day?

The new diagnosis was "but a footnote to the abiding genius of George Gey . . . It has been often said that scientific discovery results when the right man is in the right place at the right time."

What did Jones write about the misdiagnosis?

That the War on Cancer would defeat cancer in 5 years (probably to distract from Vietnam)

What did Nixon announce around this time?

That they are being sold for $25 a vial.

What do the Lacks brothers find out about the HeLa cells, after reading Rogers's articles?

Howard Jones

What doctor did Henrietta see at Hopkins?

That instead of testing the Lacks children for cancer, McKusick and Hsu were injecting them with bad blood?

What does Deborah start thinking?

The NIH required that for funding, research on human subjects had to be approved by review boards; there needed to be detailed informed consent

What changed due to the case of Southam and Mandel?

BBC documentary about Henrietta, called the Way of All Flesh

What had Rebecca been trying to get for months, that Courtney gives her?

tornado

What happened at Henrietta's funeral?

At 16, she gave birth to her son Alfred; Bobette made her continue school, and then get a job

What happened to Deborah in 1966

He was discharged from the military because he couldn't adjust emotionally; he stabbed someone (he escaped to Clover, but then turned himself in). He received 15 years, and converted to Islam.

What happened to Deborah's brother Joe?

No one ever visited her again?

What happened to Elsie after Henrietta's last visit?

Lawrence went into the military; Elsie was abandoned in the hospital for the insane; and the other three were "cared for" by Ethel (who hated Henrietta); they were hungry, beaten, and overworked.

What happened to Henrietta's children?

a White Jeep

What kind of car did Gey buy with an award for his cancer research?

New York Times

What newspaper ran a (small) news item about a Swedish researcher who had been giving himself and patients injections of vaccines made from HeLa

They either died, or undrewent spontaneous transformation and became cancerous.

What seemed to happen to all cultured cells?

informed consent

What term first appaered in court documents in 1957?

Many experimental treatments

What was Gey able to access for his cancer?

pancreatic cancer

What was Gey diagnosed with in 1970?

He gives Deborah a gift, a 14 x 20 inch print of Henrietta's chromosomes using FISH, a way to pain chromosomes with multicolored fluorescent dyes.

A young Hopkins researcher named Christoph Lengauer does what, after reading an article the Skloot (the author) publishes in Johns Hopkins Magazine

Because she was born Loretta Pleasant.

According to Cofield, why did the family have no right to any information about Henrietta Lacks?

her mother's medical records

After she visits Crownville, what does Deborah give the Rebecca Skloot (the author)?

Henrietta Lacks

Cancer cells taken without her knowledge, became HeLa cell line. Cells were reproduced, so that now there are literally too many to count at one time. If you laid all the cells end-to-end, they'd wrap around the Earth 3 times (350 million feet); they'd weigh more than 50 million metric tons. She died in 1951 from cervical cancer.

That she's not at greater risk for getting cervical cancer, because HPV mutations aren't inherited.

Christoph Lengauer tells Deborah this fact, which greatly relieves her.

Man-sized rabbits in cages

Day's new wife, Margaret, claims she saw what in the basement of Hopkins?

No, he gave them away--in fact, he didn't have any left to give researchers years later. His salary was entirely from Hopkins.

Did Gey make a profit from the Hela cells?

cognitively disabled

Elsie was ________ _____.

the # of times cells can divide, befort they stop growing and begin to die

Hayflick limit

Sri Lanka

Hela is the native name for what country?

Henrietta had multiple copies of HPV-18, one of the most virulent of over 100 strains of HPV. The HPV is a virus that inserts its DNA into the DNA of the host cell; HPV inserted itself into the long arm of her 11th chromosome and turned off the tumor suppressor gene.

How did Henrietta's cancer start?

Little Alfred was going into 8th grade, and doing well ini school; Lawrence and Bobbette's grandaughter Erika had gotten into Penn State, and then transferred to MD, and was in an MA program in Psychology; Davon was graduating hs and was planning on college

How do the grandchildren fare?

She drives a school bus for disabled children; a teenager on the bus attacks her, and permanently damages several discs in her spine.

How does Deborah get injured?

A heart attack, in 2009, on Mother's Day

How does Deborah pass away?

Her brothers seem to be coming to terms with her desire to find out more about Henrietta

How does the stroke help the family?

14 (fall of 1934)

How old was Henrietta when she had her first child, Lawrence

17 (1938)

How old was Henrietta when she had her second child, Elsie?

Hundreds of similarly unethical studies had taken place; children had been injected with hepatitis, patients had been poisoned under anesthesia using carbon dioxide.

How unique was Southam?

George Gey saying he visited Henrietta in the hospital

Laure Aurelian is the only person who remembers what?

To name Henrietta Lacks

Minneapolis Star was the first newspaper (11/2/1953) to do what?

He says the hospital wasn't a good place in the 40s and 50s. When he sees Elsie's obituary, he says that she doesn't look like she has palsy, and she is a lovely child.

Paul Lurz is the hospital's director of performance and improvement. What does he say.

Henrietta Lacks Foundation HenriettaLacksFoundation.org

Rebecca Skloot established what, before the book was published.

He is a professor of gynecology at Morehouse who had been one of George Gey's only African American students, and had orgagnized the "HeLa Cancer Control Symposium" at Morehouse (1996). He had grown up in the 30s, the son of a blacksmith turned rail road worker in a small segregated Louisiana town.

Roland Pattillo is whom?

Southam's arrangements to inject people (without their knowledge or consent) with cancer cells

Science magazine called what debate "the hottest public debate on medical ethics since the Nuremberg trials"?

A study that involved drilling holes into the skulls, draining the fluid surrounding thei rbrains, and pumping air or helium into the skull--the side effects would be crippling headaches, dizziness, seizures, vomiting

Since she had apilepsy, Elsie was likely used for experiments in what study?

His serum from his own blood, for hepatitis B. But his doctor TOLD him that what he had was valuable. He started the company Essentially Biologicals.

Ted Slavin becames rich selling what?

patents

There are 17,000 _________________ involving HeLa cells.

Cofield

This person encouraged Deborah to copyright Henrietta's cells.

Their genetic make-up.

Victor McKusick and Susan Hsu published what about the Lacks children?

Richard Axel (who would win a Nobel Prize) infected HeLa cells w/HIV, to figure out what was required for HIV to infect a cell Two scientists (Leigh Van Valen) suggested that the HeLa cells were a separate species...because the DNA is no longer the same as Henrietta's.

What are other developments of the HeLa cells in the 1980s?

He yelled and demanded the records, and tehn filed a suit against Deborah, Lawrence, Courtney Speed, the Henrietta Lacks Health History Museum Foundation, and lots of Hopkins officials, some of whom had never heard of Lacks or Cofield.

What did Cofield do when he couldn't get access to the records?

He contacted Deborah, told her that Cofield was a con artist, and had her sign a document forbidding Cofield access to the records.

What did Kidwell do when he learned the truth about cofield?

Helen Lane

What did newspapers often call Henrietta Lacks, by mistakes.

That cells doesn't have a color or a race--they are just clear, until they are dyed.

What does Christoph Lengauer tell Zakariyya about cells and race?

That they should get some of it, and that cell lines should be like oil.

What does Christoph say about the money?

The picture of Henrietta's chromosomes

What does Deborah give to Zakariyya?

Boo

What does Deborah start calling the Rebecca Skloot (the author)?

A Bible

What does Gary give to the Rebecca Skloot (the author)?

He calls his parents house twice that day; he sends the form to his mailbox ,with a sticker that said "Circle 'I do'"; he sends a letter to Moore insisting that he sign the form

What does Golde do when Moore refuses consent?

Come to his lab, so she can see her mother's cells in person.

What does Lengauer want Deborah to do?

the report on the death of Elsie Lacks

What does Lurz find for Deborah and the Rebecca Skloot (the author)?

At first he signs the form with consent, but then the next visit he refuses consent. He says he asked Golde if there was commercial value to the cells, and Golde said no, but Moore circled "do not" just in case

What does Moore do at first, and then what does he do?

He sent the form to a lawyer, who found that Golde had developed and marketed a cell line called "Mo".

What does Moore do when it seems like Golde won't take no for an answer?

That her sister was committed to a mental institution named Crownsville.

What does she learn as she is injured, sitting and reading the medical records?

Set up a scholarship fund for descendents of Henrietta Lacks.

What does the Rebecca Skloot (the author) promise to do if the book gets published?

She tries to explain that the cells were cloned, and not her mother, but Deborah waves her off.

What does the Rebecca Skloot (the author) say when Deborah says her mother was cloned?

Patients arrived from a nearby institution in a train car; in 1955 Crownsville had 2,700 patients (800 above max capacity); there was 1 doctor for every 300 patients; the death rate was much higher than discharge rate; there weren't toilets, just holes in the floor; they often didn't ahve beds or windows; they weren't separated by sex or age; and scientists conducted experiments on children without notifying their parents

What does the Washington Post article from 1958 say?

Her hair is frizzy, her eyes are bruised and almost swollen shut, she is crying, her nose is running, and her lips are swollen, and her tongue is protuding from her mouth, and she is screaming.

What does the picture show?

He had filed for ap atent on the cells, and several extremely valuable proteins those cells had produced--which would earn him more than $3.5 million, with a market value of the cell line at $3 billion.

What had Golde done just weeks before giving Moore the new consent form?

It disappears

What happens to Clover by 2009

she has a stroke, but Davon saves her by continually smacking her in the car

What happens to Deborah about a week after 9/11, when she is praying in church?

He is arrested for robbing stores at gunpoint

What happens to Deborah's son Alfred

He'd served years in prisons for fraud, mostly bad checks, and in prison he'd taken a few law courses, and now just launched frivolous lawsuits. He'd called the governor from jail and threatened to murder him; he'd sued fast food restaurants for contaminating his body by cooking fries in pork fat; he's threatened to sue many restaurants for food poisoning; he'd sued Coca-Cola for having ground glass in their bottles (even though his prison only offered Pepsi in aluminum can); he got an obituary of himself published, and then sued the newspaper for libel.

What is Cofield's true story?

Only the cancer cells.

What kind of HeLa cells are still living?

Asbestos

What serious problem did Crownsville face that made them cart away the records and bury them?

The Hopkins people dropped any plans to honor Henrietta, and never told the Lacks family they'd even considered it.

What was one unfortunate consequence of Cofield's lawsuit?

The photocopier is broke, so they are told to come back. When Cofield comes back, and identifies himself, Richard Kidwell, a lawyer for Hopkins, discovers he is a fraud.

When Cofield and Deborah try to get the records, what happens?

All Crownsville records from before 1955, the year Elsie died, had been destroyed. Deborah doesn't believe them; her blood pressure skyrockets, and her body becomes covered with welts.

When Deborah calls Crownsville, what do they tell her?

she has high blood pressure and high blood sugar, and she needs to stop going on trips with Rebecca Skloot (the author)

When Deborah gets to the doctor's office, what does he tell her

When he is asked to "voluntarily grant to U-CA all right in his cell line or any other potential product

When does Moore become suspicious?

She went to Courtney Speed's and screamed at her.

Where did Debborah go to yell?

In a book by Michael Gold, published in 1985, which breaks all sorts of privacy guidelines, by quoting extensively from Henrietta's medical reords. He says he must have been given them to Gold by Jones or McKusick, but they denied it. It was not illegal at the time (though it would be now), but it was clearly unethical.

Where does Deborah read about Henriettea's illness?

for profit cell banks and biotech companies--Microbiological Associates (Invitrogen and BioWhittaker)

Who did make a profit from HeLa cells?

Davon, Deborah's father, and Deborah's daughter

Who does Elsie Lacks look like?

Zakariyya

Who does Rebecca visit, who is kind of unstable, living in a assisted living facility, who says he's a miracle?

Victor McKusick, who tested Henrietta's children's blood to figure out which cells, in the contaminated cultures, were HeLa, and which weren't.

Who is Deborah talking about, when she says: "When I started asking questions about them tests and my mother's cells, he just handed me a copy of this book, patted me on the back, and send me home....He autographed it for me...would have been nice if he told me what the damn thing said too."

He is the president of the National Foundation for Cancer Research, and he wants to hold the 2001 annual conference in Henrietta's honor; 70 top cancer researchesr will present research, and hundreds of people will attend, including Washington's mayor, the surgeon general, etc.

Who is Franklin Salisbury and what does he want to do?

A AK pipeline worker that had hairy-cell leukemia, who was asked by his doctor to fly from Seattle to California for tests (bone marrow, blood, semen)

Who is John Moore

Rebecca Skloot (the author) and Deborah

Who meets at a bed and breakfast in Baltimore in the summer of 2000?

Because Golde held the patent; so Moore sued Golde and UCLA for doing research without consent

Why couldn't Moore become rich off his cell line, and what did he do instead?

Scientists are not sure why. Her sister Gladys says that it was to punish Henrietta for leaving home (and leaving Gladys to care for their father). Sadie mentions aliens.

Why did the cells produce virulent cells both in and out of the body, when cancer cells are so difficult to culture?

because ruling in Moore's favor might "destroy the economic incentive to carry out important medical research;" if patients had property rights in their tissues it might "hinder research by restricting access to the necessary raw materials".

Why did the judge rule against Moore

Lawrence is convinced that Hopkins is ripping them off; Sonny had to work; and Day is too sick

Why do only Deborah, Zakariyya and the Rebecca Skloot (the author) go to see the cells?

Because he tells them specific things that happened at Hopkins with Henrietta, that confirm their worst fears--that one doctor didn't have a medical license, that another had been expelled from the AMA, that the doctors had misdiagnosed her cancer, and might have killed her with an overdose.

Why does the family trust Cofield?

Because he tells her he doesn't want her and his son (Little Alfred) to see him until they can not be separated by glass, and he wants her to go find out more information about Henrietta.

Why doesn't Deborah go to visit her son Alfred on mother's day?

Because Cofield had kept sending subpoenas.

Why is Deborah afraid to check her mail?

He says he had to fight while in the womb, to keep the cancer cells away; Deborah says it was because of what Ethel did to the children.

Zakariyya has an explanation for why he is so mean, but Deborah disagrees.

carcinoma in situ

most doctors at the time thought that this type of cervix cancer would never kill anyone

telomerase

this is an enzyme that rebuilds telomeres in human cancer cells, and allows them to keep dividing

The line of samples that Gey wanted researchers to take from his body (they didn't)?

what was GeGe?

Henrietta developed acute gonorrhea superimposed on radiation reactions

About 3 weeks after starting x-ray treatment, what happened?

Henrietta started bleeding, and found a lump by her cervix

About 4 months after Joseph was born, in January 1951, what happened?

"It is, of course, inconsequential whether these are cancer cells or not, since they are foreign to the recipient and hence are rejected. The only drawback of cancer cells is the phobia and ignorance that surrounds the word cancer."

According to Southam, Why didn't he tell the truth about what he was doing?

He tested the lump for syphilis, but it was negative, so he sent her to Johns Hopkins

After she saw the local doctor, what happened

She became pregnant with her 5th child, Joseph

After she told her cousins that something was wrong, what happened?

That the tumor was gone; they even fixed her deviated septum

At the second radium treatment, what did doctors think about her progress

polio epidemic

By the end of 1951, what was happening in terms of epidemics?

foreign country

For Henrietta, walking into Hopkins was like entering a _____ ____________ where she didn't know the language.

In with Lawrence and his girlfriend Bobette. Ethel's husband, Galen, however, kept abusing Deborah.

In 1959, where did the children move?

A predisposition to criminal behavior.

In 1969, a Hopkins researcher used blood samples from more than 7,000 neighborhood children--most of them from poor black families--to look for what?

That he cancer was spreading. But the doctors just found nothing, and told her to come back in one month.

In June 1951, Henrietta told her doctors what?

An inoperable tumor attached to her pelvic wall.

In the summer of 1951, what did the doctors eventually find?

Because patients would have refused to participate in his study if they knew he was injecting councer cells

In reality, why didn't he tell the patients what he was doing?

segregated

In the 1950s, Johns Hopkins was

lead

In the late 90s, two women sued Hopkins claiming researchers had knowling expoed their children to what element?

patients from the public wards, without their knowledge.

Most doctors used which patients for their research?

Emmunuel Mandel, director of medicine at Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital in Brooklyn

Southam made an agreement with this person to use his patients for his research.

Johns Hopkins

The Lacks's believe what institution would snatch kids off the street for medical experimentation?

tumor

The hospital notes indicated that there was no evidence of a ______________ when Joseph was born, but now, 3-4 months later, there was

Lawrence Wharton

This is the doctor who first collected samples of her cells, right before she had a radium treatment--cells that would give to Gey

that 62% of women who had earlier biopsies first had carcinoma in situ

This is what Jones and TeLinde found in their study

George Gey

This person was head of tissue culture research at Hopkins, who had been trying to grow human cells outside the body--immortal cells

Richard TeLinde

This was Howard Jones's boss, who wanted to educate people on how to use Pap smears, and wanted people to realize that carcinoma in situ could become invasive carcinoma

Nuremburg Trials

Three young Jewish doctors refused to give the injections without consent. They based their objections on what famous trials?

Henrietta started bleeding, for weeks.

Two weeks after the second radium treatment, what happened?

No; one had advanced Parkinson's and couldn't talk; others spoke only Yiddish; one had multiple sclerosis and "depresses psychosis".

Was every patient even able to consent, had they been given the opportunity?

No, scientific progress flourished

Were scientists right that scientific progress would be slowed?

In part, no, because slave owners or employers would tell African-Americans that, to discourage them from leaving work or getting health care; but in part, yes, because many doctors tested drugs on slaves and operated on slaves, and even in the 1900s, there was experimentation; black corpses were often even dug up from graves for research.

Were the Lacks's fears about doctors and medical experimentation well founded?

NY (Louis Lefkowitz)

What State's attorney general launched his own investigation?

"The indigent sick of this city and its environs, without regard to sex, age, or color, who require surgical or medical treatment, and who can be received into the hospital without peril to other inmates, and the poor of the city and State, of all races, who are stricken down by any casualty, shall be received into the hospital without charge."

What was the mission that Johns Hopkins wanted for his hospital?

There was a language barrier, plus Day wouldn't have understood the concept of immortal cells, or HLA markers, etc.

What was the problem

Sonny had a bad heart; Day had prostate cancer and asbestos-filled lungs; Deborah had arthritis, osteoporosis, nerve deafness, anxiety, and depression. they had Medicare, but went long stretches without coverage or money for treatment.

What were the Lacks family medical problems?

No one knew what nutrients they needed to survive, what medium they should be in, etc.

What were the obstacles to getting cells to grow?

That the cancer had been misdiagnosed; it wasn't an epidermoid invasive carcinoma, but an aggressive adenocarcinoma of the cervix It originated from the glandular tissue of her cervix, instead of epithelial tissue. This is why the cancer spread so quickly.

When Howard Jones dug out Henrietta's medical records to remind himself of the details of his case, what did he realize?

April, 1941, when she was 20

When did Henrietta and Day marry?

August 8, just one week after her 31st birthday, 1951.

When did Henrietta go to the hospital to stay?

Around 1949

When did Henrietta start telling her friends (Sadie and Margaret, her cousin) that something was wrong?

After her second radium treatment, when she had to start x-ray therapy, which meant visiting Hopkins every day for a month

When did Henrietta tell Margaret and Sadie she was sick?

He asked to see the records of the patients in the study; he was refused; he sued

When the three Jewish doctors resigned, what did board member (lawyer) William Hyman do?

The Hospital for the Negro Insane

Where did Elsie go?

Every gynecological surgery patient at Sloan Kettering or at its James Ewing Hospital

Where else did Southam inject people

OH state penitentiary

Where else did Southam recruit volunteers?

in space

Where had both Russian and American scientists managed to grow HeLa cells?

A young reporter for Rolling Stone who tries to help the Lacks family, who realizes the family hadn't been treated very well.

Who is Michael Rogers?

Southam

Who said the following, when Science magazine asked him why he didn't inject himself: "Let's face it, there are relatively few skilled cancer researchers, and it seemed stupid to take even the little risk."

Deborah Lacks

Who said the following: "But I always have thought it was strange, if our mother cells done so much for medicine, how come her family can't afford to see no doctors? Doesn't make no sense. People got rich off my mother without us even knowin about them takin her cells, now we don't get a dime. I used to get so mad about that to where it made me sick and I had to take pills. But I don't got it in me no more to fight. I just want to know who my mother was."

Deborah, who had 3 children

Who was most panicked at the thought of having the cancer?

He wasn't the patient's actualy doctor.

Why did "informed consent" potentially not apply to Southam?

Because there was a group--a precursor to the Human Genome Project--that was discussing the contamination that the HeLa cells aused in other cultures--and they figured if they could find genetic markers specific to Henrietta, than they could figure out which cells were hers and which weren't.

Why did the scientists want to contact the family?

Because you could perform experiments on them that would have been impossibble with a living human being.

Why were the Hela cells so precious?

The immortal mouse line

Wilton Earl grew the L-cel,whichwas what?

illegal, immoral, and deplorable

affidavits from the three doctors who resigned described Southam's research using what words

radium

all invasive cervical cancers were treated at this time by this

Developing treatment for Parkinson's disease, leukemia, influenza, hemophilia; study appendicitis, longevity, mosquito mating, hygenic issues

how has the Hela cell line influence medicine?

they were treated at later stages of their illnesses; they got fewer pain medications; they had higher mortality rates

studies show that black patients were treated differently than white patients in what ways?

Marie & Pierre Curie

this couple discovered radium

epidermoid carcinoma stage I (invasive)

what was Henrietta diagnosed with in January?

Because they were afraid to interfere with the progress of science

why did elected officials in the U.S. refuse to enact regulations to govern human research?